“To promote a balanced growth of population, China will continue to uphold the basic national policy of population control and improve its strategy on population development”, Xinhua reported, citing a communique issued by the ruling Communist Party.
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China, the world’s most-populous nation with 1.4 billion people, announced in 2013 that couples could have two children if one of the parents was a single child.
The latest change applies to far more couples, but raising children is becoming more expensive and in recent years more couples have chosen to forego children altogether.
Being the highest populated country in the world, the policy was seen as a messiah for the Chinese social structure, which curbed the birth of 400 million births and saved millions of people from starvation.
“That will not change under a two-child policy”, Littlejohn said. “It might serve to address the current imbalance in the sense that if they do not boost the growth rate then very soon, within 20 years or less, the working population will be supporting four aged parents”.
What was China’s one-child policy? Many were unhappy with the change, saying they were now too old or poor to have a second child, while a few noted they didn’t support the shift because it could mean more damage to the environment and a greater drain on social services.
The announcement of the new two child policy was made at the close of an important Communist Party meeting on financial reforms and maintaining growth between 2016 and 2020 given concerns about China’s slowing economy. That policy states if the first-born is a girl, a second child is permitted.
Couples who violated the one-child policy faced a variety of punishments, from fines and the loss of employment to forced abortions.
But critics say it also resulted in tragedy with an increase in female infanticide and cases of horrific forced abortions. Shanghai-based blogger Edward Du described to Al Jazeera the situation he said was faced by one of his cousins in northern China, who has a young daughter who remains without hukou, or residency documents, because she is his family’s third child.
According to last year’s official report, China had about 185 million people above the age of 60, or 13.7 per cent of the population and the numbers were expected to surge.
Wang Feng at the University of California at Irvine has joined other China affairs experts in warning that the country was heading towards a “demographic precipice” and a crisis that could even challenge the legitimacy of Communist Party rule.
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For them to avoid stagnation and “middle income trap”, China lifts its one child policy.
