China’s New Child Policy

The communist party announced on Wednesday that they would be changing their child policy in an effort to promote a balanced growth of population. This new policy, which will go into effect sometime next year, will now allow couples to have two children instead of just one. China is changing this policy due to economic reasons, they are worried because their population is growing old before it get rich. Within the next 15 years China “could become home to the highest elderly population on the planet.” Of the nearly 1.3 billion people living in China over 400 million of them will be over the age of 60. 

China has already begun to feel the burden of their population. According to Wang Feng a professor at Fudan University, “History will look back to see the one-child policy as one of the most glaring policy mistakes that China has made in its modern history." The one-child policy was originally put into place to curb their fast growing population and to spur the economy.

Over the years China has been much more relaxed with its one child policy, allowing millions of Chinese to more than one child, especially parents, who themselves were an only child, to have a second child. However many Chinese have not taken advantage of the offer because of the rising costs of living, and how expensive it is to raise a child in the big cities of China. Schooling is just one example of something being so expensive many could not afford putting more than one child through school.

Now the “world's second largest economy is facing a struggle to maintain its growth, because there simply would not be enough workers to push the economy forward in the future.”

It is important for this policy change to work because if it doesn’t China may very well lose its standing among global powers. It will be interesting to watch this situation in China to play out over the next few years. 

http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/29/china/china-one-child-policy-ends-mckenzie/index.html

Ashley Rot