Some China Provinces Could Relax One-Child Policy

Some rural Chinese provinces are likely to expand exceptions to China's one-child policy, as the federal government continues to re-examine the 30-year-old policy, Reuters reports. The Chinese government has been cautious about reversing the policy, which largely has controlled the country's population that is expected to peak at 1.65 billion in 2033. The policy was intended to last one generation.

The government currently allows several exceptions, including allowing rural families to have a second child if the first is a girl and for couples in cities to have a second child if both parents have no siblings. Five rural provinces in 2011 will participate in a pilot program in which couples will be allowed to have a second child if at least one parent is an only child.

Zhang Feng, director of the Guangdong Population and Family Planning Commission, told the Southern Metropolis Daily, "If population control reaches the expected goal, Guangdong is likely to let couples in which one of the two is an only child to have a second child after the Twelfth Five-Year plan," which ends in 2015 (Reuters, 9/26).

However, China Daily on Monday reported that Li Bin, head of the National Population and Family Planning Commission, said there are no plans to change the one-child policy in the near future (Olesen, AP/Yahoo! News, 9/27).

Critics of the policy argue that it has led to forced abortions and sterilizations, while also imposing punitive enforcement and expanding the gender gap. They say millions of female fetuses and infants have been aborted or abandoned because of a traditional preference for male heirs. According to Reuters, there were 119.45 male newborns for every 100 female births in 2009, compared with a natural ratio of about 105 males per 100 female births. The gender disparity is likely to result in 24 million Chinese men unable to find female counterparts by 2020, which could lead to an increase in women- and child-trafficking, Reuters reports (Reuters, 9/26).


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