China Hangs Onto 1-Child Policy

Country fears growth boom if rule is rescinded
By Nick McMaster,  Newser Staff
Posted Mar 10, 2008 6:16 PM CDT
China Hangs Onto 1-Child Policy
A nurse attends to a baby at the newly opened Bayi Children Hospital in Beijing on Wednesday, May 30, 2007. A generation after being imposed, China's family planning policies continue to engender anger and resentment, especially among the largely rural country's farmers. Under the regulations, most...   (Associated Press)

China will keep up its one-child policy over the next decade as nearly 200 million citizens reach child-bearing age, CNN reports. "Given such a large population base, there would be major fluctuations in population growth if we abandoned the one-child rule now," said the country's family planning minister, responding to reports that the country might consider change.

Some economists think the government’s fear of overpopulation has blinded it to the danger of a low-fertility scenario like that facing Japan or Korea. While China’s population is still growing, the average birth rate is 1.8 children per couple—under the 2.1 a population needs to replace itself. (More China stories.)

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