The former head of China’s National Population and Family Planning Commission suggests that the government is considering a relaxation of its one-child policy in the face of an ageing population. From Reuters:
Proposed changes would allow for urban couples to have a second child, even if one of the parents is themselves not an only child, the China Daily cited Zhang Weiqing, the former head of the National Population and Family Planning Commission, as saying on Wednesday.
Under current rules, urban couples are permitted a second child if both parents do not have siblings. Looser restrictions on rural couples means many have more than one child.
[…] President Hu Jintao dropped a standard reference to maintaining low birth rates in his work report to the ruling Communist Party’s five-yearly congress in early November, a break which some experts see as evidence of an imminent change to the one-child policy.
Demographers warn that the policy has led to a rapidly graying population that could hamper China’s economic competitiveness.
See more on the one-child policy and China’s demographics via CDT.
