Efforts to relax the rigid one-child policy have passed a milestone. Henan province, the most populous, has fallen into line with the rest of the mainland by allowing couples a second child if both parents are only children.
Already, calls are mounting for families to be allowed two children to counter the rapid ageing of the population - one consequence of the controversial decision more than 30 years ago to limit most couples to bearing a single child.
Xinhua reported yesterday that Henan had finally decided to allow couples born into one-child families to have a second baby, more than 20 years after Shanghai became the first mainland jurisdiction to do so.
Henan authorities said the one-child policy had prevented more than 33 million births since it was introduced.
According to official census data, 94 million people were living in Henan last year, ranking the province third in permanent population after Shandong's 95.6 million and Guangdong's 104 million. But Henan is the most populous if Henan migrant workers in other parts of the mainland are factored in.
The province plans to keep its resident population to within 107 million by 2020.