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So either the missing girls where aborted, killed, or once the family had a boy as the first child, they stopped having kids. Or people just ignored the policy altogether.

And central planning works how exactly?

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What are you talking about? The article argues that the unaccounted girls were not aborted or killed.

Anyway, to answer your question, the central planning works to reduce population growth.

I think this article casts some doubt on whether the one-child policy was actually successful at reducing population growth. It certainly reduced the birth rate in urban areas where enforcement was stronger. But it seems like rural families had just as many kids as they would otherwise.

The families who had male children as their first child were more likely to have less children.

I'm saying out of all the possibilities, that's what could have happened. Either millions of girls weren't born because they selectively picked boys... OR as the article asserts, people ignored the policy entirely and hid the fact they had illegal children.

Either outcome is a total failure of the ability of a repressive government to control its citizenry. One option is a moral failure, the other is a policy failure.

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