The communiqué issued after the Fifth Plenary Session of the 18th Communist Party of China Central Committee on Oct 29 said all couples can now have two children. The decision, aimed at balancing population development and solving the aging population problem, is the greatest change in China's family planning policy in three and half decades.

A family of four celebrates the birthday of its youngest daughter. [Courtesy of Li Ning/China.org.cn]

The CPC Central Committee decision ends the compulsory one-child policy for most couples in the country, bases the family planning policy on social fairness and justice, and reduces a family's risk of becoming childless after losing its only child in an accident or to illness. Thus the decision will help balance population development.

But the reform is not likely to make a big change in the trend of population growth. China will still face severe population challenges, including short of working-age population, distortion in population structure and unbalanced population growth.

Although the family planning policy reform is a key step forward, China cannot overnight rid itself of the established family planning concepts such as "family planning means birth control" and "China's population is very large". In this sense, allowing all couples to have two children is an incomplete reform strategy, because it cannot resolve the population crisis.

Population policy reform, in the true sense of the term, should be based on new concepts of population development and administration. To ensure better livelihood for the people and help the rejuvenation of Chinese nation, the family planning policy should respect people's fertility rights and encourage childbirth.

The decision to allow all couples to have two children has limited policy effect as far as achieving modest fertility levels and long-term and balanced development of population are concerned. In 2011, I first stated that China had fallen into the trap of a low fertility rate. Even if the fertility rate rebounds briefly, in the next two years or so, it will not lead to a baby boom, because the trend will gradually fade as an increasing number of women born in the 1970s cross the childbearing age.