(ECNS) – China has no timetable for allowing all Chinese couples to have two children, the National Health and Family Planning Commission said Wednesday.
Media reports said that the commission and other departments were researching an extension to the second-child policy, as well as a possible two-child policy for all couples as early as this year.
Yang Wenzhuang, an official from the commission, said at a monthly press conference that research would be carried out regarding the nation's fertility policy in accordance with the requirements of the central government.
In 2013, China relaxed its one-child policy by allowing couples to have a second child if either parent was an only child. As a result, the number of newborns was up 470,000 last year over 2013.
Couples must qualify to have a second child and, according to data from the commission, an average of 80,000 to 90,000 couples apply each month.
About 39.6 percent of couples that have qualified actually have plans for a second child, the commission adds.
Lu Jiehua, a professor at Peking University, told the Beijing Morning Post that he expected the nationwide two-child policy to be released next year.
Wang Guangzhou, a researcher at the Institute of Population and Labor Economics under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the newspaper that he was also in favor of such a move.
In 2012, Wang advised China to skip the transitional policy and pilot a program allowing a second child for all couples in some provinces.
