Thursday, October 29, 2015

China Adopts Two-Child Policy

 
Reuters, 29/10 13:56 CET

By Megha Rajagopalan and Koh Gui Qing

BEIJING (Reuters) – China will ease family planning restrictions to allow all couples to have two children after decades of a strict one-child policy, the ruling Communist Party said on Thursday, a move aimed at alleviating demographic strains on the economy.

The policy is a major liberalisation of the country’s family planning restrictions, already eased in late 2013 when Beijing said it would allow more families to have two children when the parents met certain conditions.

A growing number of scholars had urged the government to reform the rules, introduced in the late 1970s to prevent population growth spiralling out of control, but now regarded as outdated and responsible for shrinking China’s labour pool.

For the first time in decades the working age population fell in 2012, and China, the world’s most populous nation, could be the first country in the world to get old before it gets rich.

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Source: Euronews

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