China assessing family planning policy adjustment

China is assessing the adjustment made to the one-child policy to decide whether further adjustment of birth policies are needed to address the change in population growth, a senior lawmaker said Tuesday.[Special coverage]

Government and legislature are studying the implementation of a policy allowing parents to have two children if either parent is an only child, Liu Binjie, head of the Education, Science, Culture and Public Health Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC), said at a press conference on the sidelines of the ongoing NPC annual session.

China adopted the policy adjustment at the end of 2013, a major change on the decades-old family planning policy, known as the one-child policy. Liu said the decision was widely welcomed among the public. So far, the adjustment has not led to an impact to the family planning policy or resulted in a baby boom.

Liu said in 2014 only 1 million parents, or one tenth of couples meeting the policy conditions, opted for a second child. Only 470,000 couples among them were able to have second babies, showing that quality, rather than quantity, have become the consensus of the people's family planning strategy.

Experts are suggesting a full implementation of the two-child policy, but Liu said it has not been put on legislature's agenda because the first policy adjustment has not been fully implemented and the authorities need time to assess the result of the policy change before making further adjustment. In addition, the authorities will study demographic issues further.

"In some areas population growth is slowing down, or even decreasing. We will make policy adjustments in time if the demographic structure has changed significantly," Liu said.