Mulan the Chinese warrior. Photo: Disney  Unfortunately, this biased mentality has prevailed in modern culture and remains entrenched in rural communities. Before the one-child rule, news of a newborn boy was almost uniformly met with a “congratulations”, while news of a girl stil gets a conciliatory “girls are good too, it’s all the same” response.  However, the introduction of the one-child policy 30 odd years ago has effectively blunted much of this male-centric fancy in families where the first born was a daughter, conditioning grumpy fathers in the face of draconian state-laws to love their only child as if she were a son.  As a single child born in China myself in the late 1980s, my own father, who back then was less than ecstatic at the news of a daughter, has no less strived to provide educational opportunities for me that beat what most boys of my age and background received – something that could easily have been shifted to a male sibling, if I'd have had one. Today, the narrative of every single child family in China is the same from parents to grandparents, irrespective of gender – how to provide the best for the child.  Chinese parents are emphatic about education – research shows that overwhelmingly large proportions of family resources are channeled towards children’s education, which can be expensive and vast in a country with a high-pressure education system that is competitive from a young age. Research into gender equalities of single-child families in China has found that singleton girls in urban areas have higher aspirations and have enjoyed significantly better educational opportunities than those from multi-children families.  China's one-child policy has 'inadvertenly' boosted equality  Furthermore, a recent study shows that girls with brothers are on average schooled for a shorter number of years than those with sisters, which demonstrates that gender bias does play a key role in allocating resources for education.  While the one-child policy seems to have “inadvertently” contributed to equality outcomes, according to a publication in the Journal of Family Issues last year, it has no less transformed prospects for women in urban China, where as high as 90 per cent of households can be single-child families, in cities like Beijing and Shanghai.  But much has also been made of the isolation that children from these single-child families experience, as well as the supposed social ineptness that comes with being the sole focus of attention – turning children into spoilt and self-centered “little emperors” that embody such characteristics.  In my own case, no doubt it would have been much more fun to have siblings growing up, but communities in China are more integrated compared to the UK, particularly at the tail-end of the socialist-era in the 1990s, where state-owned firms still housed employees’ families in large residential complexes. Back then, colleagues’ children attended the same school and played in large groups within a safe neighbourhood environment – it was no less socially cultivating or stimulating than having siblings, and far from lonely.  In fact, it was only when I moved to London for secondary school that I became aware of restrictions to my freedom – there was no community of children to play with, as families lived far apart, and running around unaccompanied was considered irresponsible on the part of my parents.  The other major assumption that too much attention equates to selfishness in adulthood is also not without holes – Toni Falbo, a professor of educational psychology and sociology at the University of Texas at Austin, who has conducted studies on tens of thousands of singleton children from both the US and China since the '70s, came to the conclusion that no measurable differences exist in terms of sociability and characterisation between singleton children and multi-sibling children. Except that single children scored higher on intelligence and achievement – due to a lack of “dilution of resources” – which holds true irrespective of economic circumstances.  Girls education has soared thanks to the one-child policy  The one-child policy in China has had a liberating impact on the lives millions of women who are better educated and more independent than ever before – and the confidence and self-assurance is evident in those who have grown up in highly nurturing environments out of the shadows of male siblings.  Despite overall improvements to women’s lives and their social prominence however, women still face huge battles in social equality as a result of traditional conceptions – from being starkly underrepresented in professions and high-ranking roles to facing common gender stereotypes. And of course, China has the impending problems of supporting an ageing population with a comparatively narrow workforce, which is also skewed towards the male sex, one that could have serious social implications for the future.  The relaxation of the one-child rule is overdue. China has reached a level of prosperity that should allow families to enjoy personal freedom that comes with the country’s economic boom. But without a doubt, the investment that the country has poured into girls in the last 30 years is wildly beyond anything that could have achieved without the policy.  Yuan Ren is a freelance journalist who grew up in both London and Beijing. She can be found tweeting @girlinbeijing
Out of the shadow of male siblings, girls have thrived under China's one-child   policy, says only child Yuan Ren, whose father strived to give her   the very best education and 'investment' in her upbringing - something she   wouldn't have got if she had a brother