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China's family planning authorities said earlier this month they were acting swiftly on reforms to the one-child policy. Photo: Reuters

China may further ease one-child policy to allow two children ‘by end of the year’

Newspaper suggests majority of couples could be allowed to have second child after government further relaxes restrictions on number of offspring

Mainland authorities could announce within months plans to further ease the decades-long one-child policy to let almost all couples have two children, local media reported on Wednesday.

An unnamed researcher said the National Health and Family Planning Commission could roll out a revised policy by the end of the year at the earliest to help the country cope with its greying population, China Business News reported.

The commission had said earlier this month that it was "wasting no time" working on the revised policy.

The newspaper also quoted a source as saying the commission's arm in Shanxi province had asked the central authorities to extend a pilot scheme to allow women in rural areas to have a second child under certain conditions.

But the branch was told that soon all parents would be allowed two children, so an extension was not necessary. An official with the provincial commission denied the exchange took place.

The government announced two years ago it would let parents who were both only children have a second baby.

Premier Li Keqiang said in his annual government report in March the government would "push forward reform of birth-control management".

 

Many experts have called for further relaxation of the policy to address looming demographic concerns, including a rising proportion of elderly, a sharp decline in the size of the labour force and imbalances in the sex ratio.

The proportion of mainlanders aged at least 60 is steadily climbing, rising from 13.3 per cent in 2010 to 15.5 per cent last year. The number of people of working age has been declining since 2011, according to official figures, triggering concerns over the possible impact on economic development.

The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences said last year that the mainland should soon allow all couples to have a second child because the total fertility rate - the average number of children that would be born to a woman across her lifetime - was only 1.4. That is far below the 2.1 rate needed to keep the population steady.

A family planning commission official said two weeks ago that the present rate was between 1.5 and 1.6.

Renmin University demographics professor Gu Baochang told the newspaper that the mainland might need a fertility rate of 2.3, given its sex-ratio imbalance.

Professor Ren Yuan, a demographer at Fudan University, said the mainland was ready to allow all families to have a second child and the sooner the policy changed, the better. Adjustments to the policy had been falling out of line with the goal of balanced population development in the mid and long term, he said.

Those born in the 1980s and 1990s were already only children and so were eligible to have two babies.

But those born in the 1970s, when the one-child policy was not strictly enforced, might have a sibling and be restricted from having a second child, he said. They might already have had a child and be less willing to have another baby as they grew older.

"Changing the policy sooner will allow more women to have a second child. But judging from the situation after China eased the one-child policy two years ago, there will not be an overwhelming number of extra births," Ren said.

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