China on Thursday said it will expand aid to rural couples with only one child to promote family planning, but will not ease its three-decade-old one-child policy to limit population growth.
China limits most couples to one child, but lets some poor couples have a second child if the first is a girl.
Rural Chinese families depend on their offspring to support them in old age, and have traditionally valued sons over daughters for their earning power.
See also One-Child Families Get Cash Rewards from CRIENGLISH.com. For China’s population data in past fifty years (1949-1998), please click here.