http://www.nytimes.com/...
China's One-Child Policy has been in effect since about 1979, using fines to coerce families to restrict the number of children.
"One Child" is something of a simplification, due to the exemptions for families farming the land (allowed 3), ethnic (non-Han) minorities (allowed three), and marriages of two people who are both only children themselves (allowed 2).
So now, it's said that the limit will be two children, and I don't see any word on loosening restrictions on farmers, ethnics and only-children.
The penalty can be steep: Wiki says, "in Guangdong, the fee is between 3 and 6 annual incomes for incomes below the per capita income of the district, plus 1 to 2 times the annual income exceeding the average. Both members of the couple need to pay the fine"
I get why this policy was put in place: In 1979, China was in something of a demographic crisis, with dropping mortality, and wanted to develop. In undeveloped countries, families have lots of kids.
In developed countries, families have few children and invest more in each of them, particularly in education. Family size naturally lessens in as a country develops. China was in a hurry, and felt that it could make family size more cause than effect, that is, shrink families to cause development.
At any rate, China seems to have bounced into another demographic crisis: a lack of women so severe that one economist has suggested that having two husbands per woman would be a good thing. Right now, there are 117 boys being born for 100 girls, and some point at selective abortion to get more boys in a limited family as the cause.
http://sinosphere.blogs.nytimes.com/...
And, in other news, even when allowed two children, many urban Chinese feel they can't afford them, as housing prices and private education costs put a squeeze on young families.
While understanding the reasons for a one child policy thirty five years ago, this change feels about twenty years too late and much too little. Restraints on reproductive freedom are a BFD. Short of the most pressing of emergencies, they should not exist. The emergency is gone. The usual desires to have few children are shriking families naturally, by choice. The restrictions should be lifted.