“China will fully implement the policy of “one couple, two children” in a proactive response to the issue of an aging population”, the ruling Communist Party said in a communique issued after its central committee’s fifth plenary session held from Monday to Thursday.
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The proposal still needs to be approved by China’s top legislature before it can be enacted, according to Xinhua, although approval is unlikely to be withheld.
Under that decision, couples where only parent was the product of the one-child policy were allowed to have a 2nd child. “The fact remains that when couples conceive a third child, the Chinese government will force them to eliminate him or her, by any means necessary”, Rubio added.
He has said the move was foreshadowed by a change in the propaganda: While old advertisements depicted parents doting on one child, he said, a recent commercial showed a boy begrudgingly sharing a toy with his younger sister. Across China, only 1.1 million of the 11 million couples eligible to have second child applied for permission, Xinhua stated.
China’s “one-child” family planning regime, which Beijing announced Thursday would end after a few four decades, has seen arbitrary and often brutal enforcement, including forced abortions and sterilisations. “Mothers who used to worry that they would be fined more than 200,000 RMB ($31,470) for having a second baby can rest assured and prepare for a second child!” There is another danger created by the one child policy which is the stark gender imbalance in China.
Fellow Weibo user “Big Forehead Qianqian” wrote: “Speaking of a second child, though it sounds like a plan too far away for me, I don’t think I’ll have one”. Secondly, nowadays people’s idea of raising a child has changed.
The removal of the restrictions on the number of children couples can have was made to enhance the balanced development of the population of China.
Social media users questioned whether one was truly the loneliest number and said that even if they wanted a child, they could not afford one.
Many couples who were allowed to have another child under the 2013 rules decided not to, especially in the cities, citing the cost of bringing up children in an increasingly expensive country. But now, as the population ages, China will allow families to have two children.
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Young adults are weighed down by student loans, housing, transportation, communications, entertainment and other costs in addition to the post-Great Recession’s weak job market, failing to give them the financial security to make ends meet, let alone raise a family.
