I am just hearing on the news that the one child per family law which apparently came into force in 1979 is to be ended and families will be able to have two children. I wonder if there wil be a huge surge in births.

I knew there was a law on the books like that, but didn't realize it was on that long. The Chinese government has always allowed more than one, if it was a multiple birth.

Obviously they would kill a twin but people were not permitted to have a second child from anothr pregnancy except in certain circumstances.

I think from 2013, if one parent was a single child the couple could have 2 children.

From what I read recently, most couples elected to stay with one child due to the additional cost perceived for raising two.
I wonder what China would offer if many couples decide to still have one child for that reason?

The main reason is the lack of young people to look after the elderly. They showed a family on our news that had only one great grandchild. I would not agree with the reason being financial, or that people will still opt for one child. Everyone I meet seems to say it is good as families will be normal again. Incidentally, you always could have another child if you paid the penalty to the government about $45,000 US. Also incidentally, the one child rule was never really enforced in rural areas where help on farms was needed. Forced abortions took place in towns mainly. Or so I am told.

The "one child" policy has been revised many times since 1979 to supposedly more "relaxed" versions. Different rules have applied to different circumstances, different locations/provinces and different status ever since the first implementation.

Rich people and folks in high government positions were always able to circumvent the rules (as happens everywhere lol).

People have resorted to having abortions in Hong Kong if they knew the fetus was female or they HAD their babies in other locations other than mainland China. This was called "birth tourism" (which makes it sound so innocent, but it was really desperation for many people).

Some (who could afford the trips) had their babies in nearby US "territories" like Saipan because of US birthright laws there (meaning that the baby had US citizenship, could move there at some point and then bring his/her family over).

Since multiple births were not "punishable" (ever, as far as I know) lots of people (again, who could afford it) resorted to fertility drugs or in vitro which could result in anywhere between 1 and 8 babies.

One of the main results of the "one only" policy, besides an awful lot of elderly folks who don't have the means to live in decent conditions, is that there are now too many men in the country, due to the "missing girls" effect where births of females were not reported or they were put up for adoption to foreign countries. And several anthropologists and Chinese historians fully believe that infanticide (particularly female babies) was highly prevalent before 1992. If they didn't kill them at birth, then many were neglected or abandoned entirely. I really have never understood why male babies were ever considered more important. One man can "create" loads of babies with only one sample, but it still (so far anyway lol) takes a woman to bring a life to fruition.

A lot of financial folks don't think this will have a very big impact one way or the other. China is not the same country as it was in the 70's. 90% of the population is no longer toiling away in rice paddies or in mines. There are more people living in cities now, more women with educations, who actually have JOBS and in general they seem to be quite good at saving money for a rainy day. Why would they want to mess that up by possibly having MORE babies than they can afford?

The countries the rest of us live in have undergone lots of similar changes too (albeit perhaps earlier than in China, demographically anyway). Yes, the baby boomer generation is too big now to be fully financially/medically supported by now lower total number of younger working forces paying taxes.

My husband's grandmother had SEVENTEEN children (poor thing). But they were practically pioneers, worked a farm, grampa was the only blacksmith within 400 miles (by horse). But there are very few family farms today, they've mostly been bought out and taken over by German, Japanese and US megacorps. So nobody needs to have 17 kids anymore.

But even ZPG (zero population growth) allows each person to replicate themselves once. I consider the one only per couple thing to be highly draconian.




Edited because there was a horrible amount of white space at the bottom of this message. I DO not like the touchpad on this computer, sigh.

When my family went on a holiday to China ten years ago, a lot of random people we met would come up to tell my mum how lucky she was to have two children. We were also told to avoid discussing how many children people had when we met any of my dad's local colleagues (Don't know if this was being overcautious but we followed it). Some of them also commented that they would like to have another child but couldn't afford it. And we did see a lot more little boys than girls when we travelled to the 2-3 cities on our itinerary.

Jake, I've never understood the male preference myself but it's a really sad reality in my country. It is even illegal to know the gender of an unborn child to prevent female foeticide but those who want to, find a way. There are now entire villages in northern India with no or very few girls and people have to resort to getting brides from entirely different corners of the country. You'd think this would make them realise the value of having girls. Instead, poor girls are 'bought' and end up being treated as bonded labourers.

So sad in this day and age.