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China abandons one-child policy China abandons one-child policy after 35 years
(35 minutes later)
China has scrapped its notorious one-child policy, allowing couples to have two children for the first time in more than three decades, official media reported on Thursday.China has scrapped its notorious one-child policy, allowing couples to have two children for the first time in more than three decades, official media reported on Thursday.
“China abandons one-child policy,” Xinhua, China’s official news agency, announced on Twitter.“China abandons one-child policy,” Xinhua, China’s official news agency, announced on Twitter.
For months there has been speculation that Beijing was preparing to abandon the highly controversial family planning rule, which was introduced in 1980 amid fears of a calamitous population explosion. For months there has been speculation that Beijing was preparing to abandon the highly controversial family planning rule, which was introduced by Communist leaders in 1980 amid fears of a catastrophic population explosion.
China’s Communist rulers credit their policy with preventing 400 million births but the draconian regulation has also been blamed for millions of forced abortions. The government credits it with preventing 400 million births, but the human cost has been immense, with forced sterilisations and abortions, infanticide, and a dramatic gender imbalance that means millions of men will never find female partners.
Related: China may bring in 'two-child policy' to tackle demographic timebombRelated: China may bring in 'two-child policy' to tackle demographic timebomb
Opponents say it has also created a demographic “timebomb” with China’s 1.3 billion-strong population ageing rapidly, and the country’s labour pool is shrinking. In 2012 – in one of the most shocking recent cases of human rights abuses related to the policy – a 23-year-old woman from Shaanxi province in the north-west was abducted by family planning officials and forced to have an abortion seven months into the pregnancy.
The UN estimates that by 2050 China will have nearly 440 million over-60s. Opponents say the policy has also created a demographic “timebomb”, with China’s 1.3 billion-strong population ageing rapidly, and the country’s labour pool shrinking. The UN estimates that by 2050 China will have nearly 440 million over-60s. Meanwhile, the working-age population – those aged between 15 and 59 – fell by 3.71 million last year, a trend that is expected to continue.
News that the one-child policy had been scrapped comes three months after one Chinese newspaper predicted the policy would be phased out by the end of this year. News that the one-child policy has been scrapped comes three months after one Chinese newspaper predicted the policy would be phased out by the end of this year. At the time those reports were denied by the Chinese government.
At the time those reports were denied by the Chinese government. In recent years, there has been a gradual relaxation of China’s family planning laws, which already permitted ethnic minority families and rural couples whose firstborn was a girl to have more than one child. Since 2013, couples in many parts of the country have been allowed to have two children if one parent was an only child.
Steve Tsang, a professor of Contemporary Chinese Studies at the University of Nottingham, said Beijing was attempting to confront an impending demographic crisis.
“It is long overdue. It’s definitely the right direction but I think its impact is going to be rather less than would [initially] appear,” he said, adding that the change would help reduce the number of human rights abuses committed in the policy’s name.
However, Tsang predicted it was unlikely to convince reluctant urban couples to have more children, and would also do little to immediately solve a dramatic gender imbalance, the result of decades of selective abortions by parents who preferred sons to daughters.
“The gender imbalance is going to be a very major problem – we are talking about between 20 and 30 million young men who are not going to be able to find a wife. That creates social problems and that creates a huge number of frustrated people,” Tsang said.
Liang Zhongtang, a demographer from the Shanghai Academy of Social Science, said in July that the policy should have been abolished long ago. “The core issue is not about one child or two children. It’s about reproductive freedom. It’s about basic human rights. In the past, the government failed to grasp the essence of the issue,” he said.