China To Ease One-Child Policy in Early 2014

  • Share
  • Read Later

Plans to ease China’s decades-old one-child policy will be rolled out early next year, Chinese state media have said.

The policy change, which Beijing announced last month it was relaxing after nearly three decades, is part of a plan to raise fertility rates and ease the financial burden on China’s aging population, reports Reuters.

Yang Wenzhuang, a director at the Chinese National Health and Family Planning Commission, told the official Xinhua news agency on Tuesday that authorities were currently calculating the number of eligible couples. The new relaxed rules are expected to go into force in some parts of China in early 2014.

Despite the goal for eventually scrapping family planning restrictions, members of parliament are reportedly concerned over enforcing current family planning regulations. “China still has a large population. This has not changed. Many of our economic and social problems are rooted in this reality,” said member of parliament Jiang Fan.

[Reuters]