"China reforms: One-child policy to be relaxed"

From the BBC:

China is to relax its policy of restricting most couples to having only a single child, state media say.

In future, families will be allowed to have one and a half children if one parent is an only child or has no more than half a sibling, the Xinhua news agency said…

The latest announcements are contained in a 22,000-word document released three days after the Third Plenum meeting of the Communist leadership in Beijing…

The one-child policy would be "adjusted and improved step by step to promote 'long-term balanced development of the population in China'", Xinhua said.

China introduced its one-child policy at the end of the 1970s to curb rapid population growth. During the 1980s this was tightened and replaced with a "0.8-child policy" but this proved to be unworkable.

Reformers have argued for the limit to be increased to 1.8 children but hard liners argued that this was "too far too fast" and the results of the new "1.5-children policy" will be monitored carefully before further relaxations are considered.