The story appears on

Page A3

December 22, 2015

GET this page in PDF

Free for subscribers

View shopping cart

Related News

Home » Nation

Policymakers fine-tune family planning rules

CHINA will formally abolish the decades-old one-child policy on January 1, according to the draft family planning law designed to bolster the nation’s shrinking workforce.

The draft came after the Party decided in October on the universal two-child proposal, which will replace the “one couple, one child” policy. However, the Party didn’t specify the timeframe of phasing out the one-child rules at the time.

“The state advocates that one couple shall be allowed to have two children,” according to a draft amendment submitted for review at the bimonthly session of the National People’s Congress Standing Committee, which opened yesterday.

Li Bin, head of the National Health and Family Planning Commission, said the CPC’s decision was made to adapt to China’s changing population.

The top legislature must amend the family planning law in order to implement the October decision. The current law took effect in 2002 and contributed to stabilizing a low birth rate and guaranteed the healthy and steady development of family planning, Li said.

Under the current law, citizens who marry late and delay having children may be entitled to longer marriage and maternity leaves, and couples who volunteer to have only one child are also rewarded.

These articles were deleted in the draft. However, the amendment will not affect the benefits received by the older generation who abided by the current law, and parents with only one child, or whose only child is disabled or deceased.

While clarifying the draft, Li told lawmakers at yesterday’s session that people receiving rewards and assistance before the amendment will continue to receive them afterwards.

The draft also allows couples to make their own choices on contraception, and no longer states that couples “must accept guidance on family planning.”

The trade of sperm, eggs, fertilized eggs and embryos is forbidden, as is surrogate pregnancy. Punishments will range from warnings and fines to criminal penalties.

China’s family planning policy was introduced in the 1970s to rein in the surging population. For decades, most urban couples were limited to one child and rural couples were allowed to have two children if their first was a girl. Since its implementation, the policy has resulted in an estimated prevention of some 400 million births, but it has also been blamed for generating social problems, like a decreasing labor force and an aging population.

In 2013, China relaxed its birth control rules, allowing couples to qualify for a second child if one of the partners is an only child. The one-child policy was abandoned at the Fifth Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee held in October.

The policy is expected to result in more than 30 million more people in the labor force by 2050 and a 2 percent fall in the proportion of elderly, Wang Pei’an, deputy head of the family planning commission, said in November.

Teng Wenli, a 33-year-old university teacher and mother of a 6-year-old girl in northwest China’s Shaanxi Province, is excited about the timing of the new law.

“I am a little worried, as more children mean more pressure and cost, but my husband and I decided to have a second child.”

Chinese people have traditionally relied on their children to help them in old age, and it was once thought the more children the better.

For Wang Jixiang, a mother of a boy in Chengde, north China’s Hebei Province, one child is enough.

“My husband and I don’t worry about care when we are old. We don’t need more children,” she said.

Companies are finding it harder to replace older workers. The amendment will ensure a high-quality future workforce for China’s economic development, said Wu Fenggang, an economist with Jiangxi Provincial Academy of Social Sciences.

China’s leaders called for adherence to the family planning rules as state policy.

At a meeting led by Xi Jinping last week, the leadership urged improved birth registration, coordinated policies in education, social security, and employment and appropriate distribution of public services.

Health care for women and children should be improved, and medical workers should be better trained. The meeting also called for strengthened support to families that follow the family planning policy.

See A6 for ‘domestic abuse’




 

Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.

沪公网安备 31010602000204号

Email this to your friend