China’s one-child policy to change – but gradually

BEIJING - Wang Pei'an, Vice-Minister of China’s National Health and Family Planning Commission, says changes to China’s decades-old one-child policy is a step toward achieving a more balanced population age demographic. China’s total fertility rate has decreased for more than 20 years.

The labour-force population (15 to 59 years old) in 2012 was 937 million, down 3.45 million from the previous year. The one-child policy also resulted in an increasingly older population, with the number of people over 60 expected to be one-fourth of the total population in 2030 and one-third of the population in 2050. The sex ratio at birth is also highly unbalanced, with 121.1 boys born for 100 girls in 2004, and in 2012, 117.7 boys born for 100 girls, the highest ratio in the world.

However, the policy change will be implemented gradually due to concerns it could cause a spike in births and strain public resources. The new policy will cap China’s population at 1.45 billion by 2030,and postpone the population peak by four years.