China's ruling Communist Party says it will abandon the One Child Policy of population control after more than three decades, as it aims to kickstart the flagging economy and avoid a rapidly greying society by encouraging people to have more children.
According to a report on the official Xinhua news agency, all couples would be allowed two children from now on.
China is "abandoning its decades-long One Child Policy," Xinhua reported.
The Communist Party announced the news in a communiqué after four days of deliberations behind closed doors in Beijing to come up with a new Five-Year Plan to act as a roadmap for China’s future.
The abolition of the policy will be confirmed at the country’s annual National People’s Congress in March.
The One Child Policy was introduced in 1979 to help control China’s burgeoning population, and has prevented hundreds of millions of births.
Slowing population growth, severe gender imbalances and a shrinking labour force have fuelled fears of a demographic timebomb in China, the world’s most populous nation with 1.34 billion people, and the working population is slowly beginning to shrink, threatening already flagging economic growth.
China's working-age population shrank for the first time in at least 20 years last year as growth slowed, and there were fears that China's economy could face a sustained downturn like Japan in the 1990s.
There have long been differing exceptions to the rules - ethnic minorities could have more than one, and under an easing of the rules in 2014, couples may now have a second child if either parent is an only child.
Few couples took up the offer to have more children when the rule was relaxed in 2014, many of them claiming it was because they couldn’t afford it, or didn’t have time, or felt one was enough.
The news was greeted positively. One contributor on social media, who used the name ZL, said: “I can finally have second child without worrying about anything now. Good news.”
But for some people, there was a tinge of regret.
“I had an abortion earlier this year,” Jiangnan wrote on the social media Sina Weibo. “If the policy had come a bit earlier, I wouldn’t have done it. This policy is too late,” while someone who gave the initials LXX wrote: “I wanted a second child before, but now I am already in my mid-50s.”
Another commentator called Kaqiselili said: “Will the government raise the baby for us as well if we have a second child? I think it will increase the burden on those born in the 1980s generation. Even if the policy opens up now, I don’t want it.”
The policy was introduced as part of late leader Deng Xiaoping’s efforts to overhaul the economy some 36 years ago, when the average birth rate was nearly three per woman.
It was often brutally enforced. Couples who violated the policy faced a variety of punishments, from fines of several times their incomes, to the loss of employment and pension rights, to forced sterilisation or abortions.
The meeting of the plenum this week is important as it will give real insight into President Xi Jinping’s intentions as regards reform and of transforming China’s economy into one with slower, more balanced growth. He has been in power now for three years.
