ISSUES
: Our Changing Population
Chapter 2: Global population issues
34
China ends one-child policy after
35 years
Government to allow all couples to have two children as “response to an ageing
population” and amid concerns over economy.
By Tom Phillips
C
hina has scrapped its one-
child policy, allowing all
couples to have two children
for the first time since draconian
family planning rules were introduced
more than three decades ago.
The announcement followed a four-
day Communist Party summit in
Beijing where China’s top leaders
debated financial reforms and
how to maintain growth at a time
of heightened concerns about the
economy.
China will “fully implement a policy
of allowing each couple to have
two children as an active response
to an ageing population”, the Party
said in a statement published by
Xinhua, the official news agency.
“The change of policy is intended to
balance population development and
address the challenge of an ageing
population.”
Some celebrated the move as
a positive step towards greater
personal freedom in China. But
human rights activists and critics
said the loosening – which means
the Communist Party continues to
control the size of Chinese families
– did not go far enough.
“The state has no business regulating
howmany children people have,” said
William Nee, a Hong Kong-based
activist for Amnesty International.
“If China is serious about respecting
human rights, the Government should
immediately end such invasive and
punitive controls over people’s
decisions to plan families and have
children.”
For months there has been
speculation that Beijing was
preparing to abandon the divisive
family planning rule, which was
introduced in 1980 because of fears
of a population boom.
Demographers in and outside
China have long warned that its
low fertility rate – which experts
say lies somewhere between 1.2
and 1.5 children a woman – was
driving the country towards a
demographic crisis.
Since 2013, there has been a
gradual relaxation of China’s family
planning laws that already allowed
minority ethnic families and rural
couples whose firstborn was a girl
to have more than one child.
Thursday’s announcement that
all couples would be allowed two
children caught many experts by
surprise.
“I’m shaking to be honest,” said
Stuart Gietel-Basten, a University
of Oxford demographer who has
argued for the end of the one-child
policy. “It’s one of those things
that you have been working on and
saying for years and recommending
they should do something and it
finally happened. It’s just a bit of
a shock.”
The Communist Party credits
the policy with preventing 400
million births, thus contributing
to China’s dramatic economic
takeoff since the 1980s.
But the human toll has
been immense, with forced
sterilisations, infanticide and
sex-selective abortions that
have caused a dramatic gender
imbalance that means millions
of men will never find female
partners.
“The gender imbalance is
going to be a very major
problem,” warned Steve Tsang,
a professor of contemporary
Chinese
studies
at
the
University of Nottingham. “We
are talking about between 20
million and 30 million young
men who are not going to be
able to find a wife. That creates
social problems and that
