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FAR FEWER CHINESE couples applied to have a second child than expected after a relaxation of the country’s “one child” policy, state-run media reported today, highlighting the ageing nation’s demographic challenges.
The world’s most populous country has restricted most families to a single child since the late 1970s, but the Communist party said in November that couples would be allowed to have two offspring so long as one of the parents is an only child, rather than both.
Authorities had expected the change to result in more than two million extra births a year, but out of more than 11 million couples eligible, only 700,000 had applied for permission by the end of August, the China Daily newspaper said, citing the National Health and Family Planning Commission.
Of those, 620,000 had been authorised, it added.
China has a population of 1.36 billion, the National Bureau of Statistics said in January, but its working-age population fell by 2.44 million last year.
Over-60s accounted for 14.9 percent of the total, it said, and projections show that they will represent one in four of the population — 350 million people — by 2030.
Changing attitudes
The lower-than-expected desire to have more children might reflect changing perceptions of reproduction, particularly in cities, said Lu Jiehua, a demography professor at Peking University, according to the report.
The new policy mostly affects couples in urban areas, where the family planning policy has been implemented more strictly than in the countryside.
But education and housing are expensive in cities, and reliance on children in old age is lower, making multiple offspring less necessary.
Chinese academics have called for an across-the-board two-child policy to be introduced to tackle emerging labour shortages.
China’s birth limit policies have at times been brutally enforced, with authorities relying on permits, fines, and, in some cases forced sterilisations and late-term abortions.
Beijing says the policy prevented food shortages and laid the foundations for the country’s recent economic growth.
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Can we introduce these Chinese restrictions to the Tracksuit wearing folk of Dublin?
Or just force them to wear smart slacks.
Nationwide would be great.
Those tracksuit wearing folk will be producing the next generation of Athletes in Dublin
Only if there’s an Olympic plasma TV carrying race
That’s Tottenham and Croydon you’re thinking of
That`s strange,a lot of Chinese people living here are having second and third children.?
wonder would it be an attraction to come here? plus… the child benefit! but of course
good schools all the way thru uni are free here. in china good schools cost a pretty penny
we should close the doors so, sorry we’re full! (which is true) sorry!
Good schools ???? Where ?
Pity the local social welfare professionals here aren’t subjected to the one child rule
One day we pray
oh wait is their any child benefit in China?
There’s proper free education in China.
Insert “hilarious” Chinese pronunciation joke here……….
What’s wong with these people?
I tell ya what – live in a small apartment with you wife & child and quite often with your parents too. Earn an average of €600 a month. Work on minimum of 50 hours a week, under stressful management. Have insane commute times due to heavily populated cities and travel on crowded bus like a sardine in a can.
Now – how keen are you to have a second kid?
Be quiet about things you know nothing about and have never witnessed.
@John Fahey very true Dublin not a great place to live go west young man
Maybe they want their only child to be “ronery?”
The law forms opinion. The demographic collapse is now irreverdable. This is why marriage and children are intrinsic to a healthy society. Europe, although for different reasons, is following the same collapse, and the repopulation from other healthy nations will dramatically change the culture and ethnicity of Europe.
have your say