The Chinese government announced it would end its decades old "one-child" policy and permit all couples to have up to two children, in a move that was lauded by many in the country.
The Communist Party leadership disclosed the decision after a meeting that discussed the next five years of planning in China. The new strategy is expected to ease demographic disaster in the coming years due to the rapidly increasing aging population and a shortage of individuals who are working-age.
The statement delivered through the official Xinhua agency did not mention since when the new policy changes will be effective, but only made a key point that the party reached an agreement to "fully adopt the policy that one couple is allowed two children."
Wang Feng, an expert in Chinese affairs at the University of California, told the Washington Post that the new step by the government was much needed as the country was headed towards a demographic cliff.
"This really marks a historic point to end one of the most controversial and costly policies in human history. But China for decades to come will have to live with the aftermath of this costly policy," he said.
The highly controversial one-child policy that came with a significant human cost was implemented in 1979 in an effort to slow down the population growth.
The one-child rule was enforced strictly and often brutally with forced sterilizations, abortions, and huge fines. After about 35 years, the policy is said to have prevented some 400 million births, and has caused gender imbalance and a receding labor population.
China's female-to-male ratio took a plunge after the introduction of one-child policy, which triggered sex-selective abortions. In the villages, however, people were allowed to have a second child if their first one was a girl.
The country went easy on the decades-old policy in 2013, when it permitted second child to a couple if either parent was an only child. However, skeptics say that this policy did little to spur people to have more than one child, and for the same reason the new decision also is likely to have only slight effect on correcting the demographic hurdle.
"The change won't cause a baby wave, as the last policy change proved. Couples chose not to have a second child because of economic pressure and insufficient social welfare," Peng Xizhe, Professor at Fudan University, told the Washington Post.
"The reform will slightly slow down China's aging society, but it won't reverse it," Xizhe continued. "It will ease the labor shortage in the long term, but in the short term it may increase the shortage because more women might stop work to give birth."
Even with the introduction of new policy, women's rights to choose their family size is still expected to remain constrained as before.
"As long as the quotas and system of surveillance remains, women still do not enjoy reproductive rights," Maya Wang of Human Rights Watch was quoted as saying by AFP.
According to UN estimates, by 2030, the aged people over 60 years will near 400 million, which will be about 25 percent of the expected total population at that time. At present, China has approximately 900 million people in the productive age. The working-class population declined by 3.7 million over the last four years, and the trend is expected to continue.
