Desirable Properties of an Unconventional Population Control Policy * (RESEARCH NOTES/NOTES DE Recherche) (One (Male) Child Policy‪)‬

Abstract A great deal of concern has now been expressed about the authoritarian population control policies adopted by Asian countries such as Vietnam, India, and particularly China. Many of these autocratic policies and certainly the Chinese 'one child policy' have failed in part because the framers of these policies have attempted to unsuccessfully circumvent a long standing cultural desire for male children. Therefore, in this note, we first propose an unconventional population control policy that is sensitive to this cultural desire for male progeny. Next, we show that this policy is desirable because: (i) it is likely to ameliorate the "missing girls" problem, (ii) it leads to an equal proportion of females and males in the overall national population, and (iii) its adoption will eventually result in replacement fertility rates in the nation under study.