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In 1979, the Chinese government selected to make Chinese communism more open and capitalistic. Under the new leadership of Deng Xiaoping, China revolutionized its policy on fertility and wealth. The government wanted to do more than just equitably divide up wealth; instead, it started focusing on creating economic growth. Deng Xiaoping¡¯s famous statement clearly illustrates this policy shift, "[t]o build socialism it is necessary to develop the productive forces. Poverty is not socialism" (Goodman 121). This radical shift in policy transformed the government¡¯s attitude toward population and rapid population growth. In this paper, I will analyze the Chinese government¡¯s decision to implement The One-Child Policy in 1979, based on the goal of increasing economic wealth. I will focus on the short-term effects of the change in the GDP per capita growth rates between 1980 and 1999. There has been a great deal of debate on the issue of how population affects economic variables, beginning in 1798 with Robert Malthus¡¯ famous theory put forth in, ¡°An essay on the principle of population.¡± I will empirically test the effects of population growth on GDP per capita to identify if there is a significant relationship