In 1979, China (which contained approximately 25% of the world's population), initiated a dramatic policy named "one child family" that aimed for major social and economic reforms. Rather then just trying to use other forms of birth prevention to control the countries population and limit industrialization, they figured that a strictly enforced law will be more effective because it has to be obeyed or consequences will be dire. The policy limits couples to one child. Fines, pressures to abort a pregnancy, and even forced sterilization accompanied second or subsequent pregnancies. .
The policy was put in place to basically break down family devotion to reinforce loyalty to the central government. But this couldn't be done directly or formally because to do this they would have to change all inheritance laws since communism had extinguished property rights. Through a one child policy the government broke down family units over time by shrinking the extended family to one consisting of a son or daughter with parents and grandparents. Now without siblings, only more distant cousins, a few uncles and aunts compose the extended family. Therefor giving the Mao Communist government way more control and power, without the country being ran as a democracy.
Although the "One Child Policy" really had good intentions, there were many problems that the main creators overlooked. For one, couples in China rarely wanted female children, who are victims of circumstance in that they have few means to support a family. Which we can revert this back to Identity vs. Intimacy because emerging adults are supposedly independent, leaving their childhood home and parents behind. This also means that they have few means to support their parents as they grow old as well. But there's also positive to the "One Child Policy" with there only being one child, help builds Self-Actualization which is the 5th stage of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, because there is no brothers or siblings to compete with, so the one child can only live up to their own fullest potential.
