system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: China's population was around .6 billion in 1960. How did it increase to ~1.4 in just 55 years, especially with the one child policy in effect?
gpt
Sometimes when we analyze statistics, we forget to place them into the context of people's everyday lives.

For a very long time, health outcomes have been very poor in much of the world, with a high child mortality rate. When a parent is likely to lose one or more children, then they develop a culture where they have many children, sometimes five or more, just to be sure that they don't run out.

In 1960, China's government began to focus on health care. Infant mortality dropped, life expectancy increased, and for the first time in China's history, nearly all of the children grew up. These children themselves had large families, but *their* children did not.

While it is true that legislation played a role in that, it only helped to expedite this process. We see the exact same forces play out in every country as medicine becomes widely available - a brief population boom followed by a transition to small family sizes. This is because when you grow up without infant mortality, you begin to see all of the advantages of small families over large ones, instead of viewing small families and imagining the loss of brothers and sisters.

If you'd like to know more, look into Hans Rosling, a statistician from the Gapminder Foundation. They produce a fantastic digital archive of statistical data, and use it to cultivate educational videos.