In 1979, China implemented a one-child-per-family policy. This policy aimed to reduce overpopulation and maintain a stable economy. Families who do not adhere to this policy are fined and pressured to terminate their second or third pregnancies and undergo sterilization surgery. They may also be subject to ridicule and social disapproval. There are certain exemptions to this policy. For example, in some rural areas of China, couples are allowed to have two children. If both members of a couple come from a household with only one child, they too may be allowed to have two children. While these exceptions may appear to increase the fairness of this policy, the policy itself is completely flawed and ineffective. This is a fundamentally flawed policy and its use should stop; because it creates a major distortion in sex ratios, has extremely negative psychological consequences for children in single households and because it causes great economic pressure on the government and the Chinese population in general. The most obvious and problematic consequence of China's one-child policy is the distortion of the sex ratio. Currently in China, there is a significant gap between the number of men and the number of women. The number of men is far greater than the number of women. This gender gap is called the “missing women” (Bulte, Heerink, & Zhang, 2011). According to research, there are currently up to 40 million “missing” women in China (Bulte, Heerink, & Zhang, 2011). The main reasons for this gap are the combination of male preference and a one-child-per-family policy. There are many reasons why male children are preferred over female children in China. In ru...... middle of paper ......statistics, 73, 21–39.• Female infanticide. (2010). Retrieved March 14, 2011, from the British Broadcasting Corporation website: http://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/abortion/medical/infanticide_1.shtml• Feng, W. (2005). Can China afford to maintain its one-child policy? : Asia-Pacific Issues, 77, 12-24.• Hesketh, T., Zhu, W., and Lu, L. (2008). China's male excess, sex-selective abortion and the one-child policy: analysis of data from the 2005 national intercensal survey. BMJ, 338, 1211-1220. • Hesketh, T. and Zhu, W. (1997). Health in China: the one-family policy: the good, the bad and the ugly. BMJ, 314, 1685-1686. • Rosenberg, M. (2011). China's one-child policy. Retrieved March 16, 2011 from http://geography.about.com/od/populationgeography/a/onechild.htm• Yi, Z. (2010). China's population is aging rapidly. Current research on aging, 20, 27- 32.