In one of the signature reform measures of his early presidency, Xi Jinping declared last November that China’s notorious “one-child” policy would become a “two-child” policy for couples where either husband or wife was an only child. While the change didn’t abolish the often brutally enforced population control measure, it was a start. Chinese officials hoped the announcement would usher in a mini-baby boom, predicting as many as 2 million additional births per year to parents who had long been denied full reproductive rights.
Xi’s government, of course, wasn’t merely expressing its love of children. The point was to find a quick fix — let them have more kids! — to a looming demographic disaster: By 2050, one in four Chinese will be 65 or older, placing intense pressure on families, social services, and the economy. Yet what’s fast becoming clear is that there’s no easy solution to China’s population problems.
The proof is in data released on Wednesday by China’s National Health and Family Planning Commission. Of the more than 11 million Chinese couples that became eligible to have a second child, only 700,000 have applied to do so. (Around 620,000 were approved.) No national-level data was provided as to how many children have been born to those couples. But the city of Chongqing, whose population of more than 33 million is sometimes called the world’s largest, was disappointed to claim a mere 5,015 births as a result of the reform.
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