Last week, China’s state-run news agency Xinhua announced that China will adjust its one-child policy to a two-child policy, allowing Chinese couples to have two children instead of only one. However, the proposal will only take effect once it is ratified by the National People’s Congress, China’s national legislature, which will be decided in March of 2016.
China’s implementation of the two-child policy is in response to China’s unbalanced age demographics. Because of the one-child policy, China has a large population of elderly citizens. This can potentially have negative effects on China’s healthcare systems, and the economy is expected to stagnate as the population continues to age.
Back in January of 2014, China began to ease the one-child policy by letting some couples have a second child. But it remains to be seen whether or not the policy change is going to impact China and its population growth in the future.