CPC began relaxing the one-baby policy in 2013 by allowing couples to have two kids if one of the two significant others was an only child.
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Reggie Littlejohn, Chairman of “Women’s Rights Without Borders” told VOA she believes the two-child policy does not stop population control.
“The full relaxation of the one-child policy” was the most discussed topic on Chinese social media site Weibo within hours of state news media announcing the policy change on Thursday, after a four-day meeting of the party’s Central Committee in a hotel in Beijing. The Guangdong office worker, 36 and soon to be married, wants only one child as any more would be too expensive.
For decades, harshly implemented the one-child policy, leading to forced abortions and infanticides across the country.
However, the proposal must be approved by the top legislature before it is enacted, Xinhua news agency reported. This means that from November, the couples in China will be allowed to have a second child.
Stuart Gietel-Basten, associate professor at Oxford University, said that the reform will do little to change China’s population but it is a “pragmatic response to an unpopular policy that made no sense”. Rural families, ethnic minorities, and couples that are both only children were already exempt from the existing rule.
The Chinese government imposed its one-child policy in 1979 to curb the growth of the population that, at that time, was reaching 972 million people.
Couples who flout family planning laws in China are, at minimum, fined, a few lose their jobs, and in a few cases mothers are forced to abort their babies or be sterilized.
The one-child policy was gradually eased in recent years as China experienced economic growth and as the country had to deal with its aging population.
Users questioned whether one was truly the loneliest number and said that even if they wanted a child, they could not afford one.
China is to scrap its decades-long one child per family policy and allow couples to have two children.
“I think it’s more an attempt to show that the regime cares more for people, it’s an attempt to establish a better relationship between the Communist Party and particularly the younger, urban middle class, who are the people who the Communist Party needs to keep the allegiance and the loyalty of, and there are signs that that relationship’s been fraying”.
In an editorial on Friday, the state-owned Global Times said the end of the policy “echoes people’s will”, acknowledging that it had been widely condemned.
“It is expected that after the adjustment, the number of births will increase, with more than 20 million births expected in a peak year”, said Wang Pei’an, deputy head of the National Health and Family Planning Commission.
The more China’s population rises, the easier it is for it to become the richest and most powerful nation on Earth.
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“The change in birth rate has met our expectations”, Wang said. Many of those for whom the rule change could make a difference have moved on with their lives.
