China's One-Child Policy

Excellent article today from Matthews Asia on the PRC's liberalization of the 1980 One-Child Policy and the general state of population growth in an increasing urbanized China.

"Last November, China’s Communist Party announced that the one-child policy would be relaxed by implementation of a policy in which families are permitted to have two children if either a husband or a wife is an only child. This marks a change from the previous rules which required both the husband and wife to be only children in order to qualify to have a second child.

Contrary to conventional wisdom, ending the one-child policy is unlikely to change the longer-term trend toward a lower fertility rate, as the pressures of modern life lead Chinese couples to have smaller families."