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China to ease one-child population policy

China will loosen its decades-long one-child population policy, allowing couples to have two children if one of them is an only child, according to a key decision issued today by the Communist Party of China (CPC).

Previously, only couples who are both from one-child family can have a second child as can couples whose first child has a non-inherited disability.

In rural areas, couples are allowed a second child if the first is a girl.

The one-child policy came into force in the late 1970s and the nation’s birth rate has since dropped to a very low level.

According to the 2010 national census, national total fertility, or the number of children a woman will deliver in her lifetime, was just 1.18, half the international level and lower than developed countries’ 1.7.

In cities, the rate was 0.88, according to the census.

Population experts have long been calling for the government to relax the country’s family planning rules, maintaining that allowing more couples to have a second child wouldn’t lead to a population explosion but rather help to improve the population structure and support sustainable development in the nation.




 

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