BEIJING – China's Communist Party on Thursday officially ended its policy that limited most families to a single child, an acknowledgment that the 1970s population-control measure was outdated, was holding back economic growth and had distorted China's demographics in ways that could hurt the party's long-term hold on power.
Some experts were surprised by the suddenness of the decision — a dramatic step away from a core Communist Party position of Deng Xiaoping, the Chinese leader who imposed the policy in the late 1970s.
However, the problems caused by the one-child policy have been apparent for many years. With so many families limited to a single child, China's labor force is shrinking and working people without siblings are struggling to care for their aging parents.
Moreover, the policy has contributed to a surplus of men, partly because of a patriarchal tradition of favoring male children. That means an excess of young males with no marriage prospects — a formula for potential unrest and chaos of the kind party leaders fear most.
"Certainly the Communist Party for many years said that the sex-ratio imbalance is a severe societal problem," said Leta Hong Fincher, a Hong Kong-based sociologist who specializes in Chinese policy toward women and families. "They have been talking about loosening the policy for years. Still, I am surprised they did this without a more gradual step. It suggests they felt they needed to move rapidly because of the demographic crisis."
Even with the lifting of the one-child rule, the Communist Party hasn't completely gotten out of the business of dictating reproductive decisions. Under the new policy, announced in a party communiqué late Thursday, married couples nationwide will be allowed to have two children, but no more.
It also appears the party will not immediately loosen restrictions on single women having children, a sore point for the country's feminists.
China eased some restrictions in the one-child policy in 2013, allowing couples to have two children if one of the spouses was an only child. But many eligible couples declined to have a second child, citing the expense and pressures of raising children in a highly competitive society.