Effective on Jan. 1, 2016, Chinese couples will be allowed to have until two children. Last Sunday, the Chinese lawmakers finally approved the two-child policy that brings an end the controversial one-child policy that the Chinese government has imposed to couples within its territory.
In hopes of counter acting in a threat of foreseen shortages in the labor force, Chinese communist party has approved the law that allows every couple to bear at most two children.
Before the newly reformed law takes effect, the bearing of more than one child which violates the one-child policy will result to a fine of more than $6,000.
The proposed law has been announced to the public last October 2015. The one-child policy was first introduced to China in the 1970s in order to mitigate the rising population of the state which threatens to cause poverty and and overpopulation.
The child limit proved to be effective in controlling the demand of goods within China and has resulted in controlling over 400 million potential births and improved the living conditions of millions of Chinese citizens with the decrease of demands in goods. Even after the successful effect of the one-child policy, a lot of reforms have been endorsed to alleviate the restrictions created by the population control law but it is not until the threat of an imbalance population that China decides to relieve the pressure on the child policy law.
According to Xinhua News Agency, "Relaxation of the family planning policy is expected to provide part of the solution to the challenge of an aging population, and to become a new driver for the economy in the long run."
Even with the significant reform on China's controversail one-child policy, human rights group Amnesty International remains unsatisfied with the Chinese government's decision and calls the two-child policy as "not enough."
"Couples that have two children could still be subjected to coercive and intrusive forms of contraception, and even forced abortions -- which amount to torture," says William Nee, a China researcher for Amnesty International.
