Less than 40 percent of the population is restricted by the
family planning policy to having one child, a senior official with
the National Population and Family Planning Commission said
yesterday.
While popularly referred to as the "one child policy", the rule
actually restricts just 35.9 percent of the population to having
one child, Yu Xuejun, a spokesman with the commission, said in a
Webcast on the government's website (www.gov.cn).
Except in Central China's Henan Province, couples can have two
children if they are both only children, he said.
In addition, more than 11 percent of the population, mostly
minority groups, is free to have two or more children, he said.
In many rural areas, couples are allowed to have a second child
if their first is a girl (the so-called "one-and-a-half children
policy"). This applies to 52.9 percent of the population. For lack
of a social security system, people usually depend on sons to
support them when they grow old.
Yu said China does not want the current birth rate of 1.8 per
couple to fall, as it needs to be "in harmony with the economy,
resources and environment".
He said that since 2000, the family planning policy has been
adjusted to maintain the birth rate, not lower it.
"We don't encourage couples who are entitled to have two
children to have only one," Yu said. "And it is not true we want
the birth rate to be as low as possible."
He also suggested the export of labor could help reduce the
population pressure.
"Family planning is, of course, not the only way to control the
population," he said.
"China has 20 percent of the world's population, but accounts
for only 1 percent of global expatriate laborers.
"In countries like the Philippines and Mexico, about 10 percent
of laborers work abroad every year, which is a good inspiration for
our country," he said
Workers from the Philippines were even beginning to show up in
China, he said.
Yu also said the family planning policy had a "certain
relationship" with the acceleration of an aging society and the
imbalance in the sex ratio of newborn babies.
However, he said the government must maintain its birth polices
as the baby boom generation of the 1970s and 80s has now reached
marriage and childbearing age, risking another population surge if
restrictions are dropped.
"I can see no major changes in the family planning policy before
2010," he said.
"After that, the government might adjust it according to the
situation."
China has maintained its family planning policy since the late
1970s.
(China Daily July 11, 2007)