04/06/2021
China has announced that it will be relaxing its rules on parenting and families will now be able to have three offspring. During the period from 1979 to 2016, the communist state forbade any couple from having more than one child, amid continued concern that the country, which historically had suffered numerous famines, was far too populous. After the population fell, a two child limit was established five years ago. Sceptics argue that since this has not been effective at halting China's sharp population declines, there is no reason to suppose that a three child policy will prove any better, and many news agencies have suggested that the pressures of modern life mean that many Chinese couples choose to have fewer children, especially in cities where the standard of living and inner city pressure have grown so drastically. As a consequence of the one child policy in the past, there was an increase in infanticide and sex specific abortions, with the result that today, men outnumber women in China by around 40 million.
