Authorities deny changes to one-child policy

China's top family planning authority denied there will be changes to the one-child policy that has been in place for more than 30 years, the Beijing-based Legal Evening News said on Tuesday.

An anonymous official from the National Health and Family Planning Commission denied on Tuesday a report by China Business News that said the central government will allow couples nationwide to have two children if either of the spouses is an only child.

The refuted report said the relaxed family planning policy is expected to roll out soon without pilot programs.

According to a source cited in the report, the new regulation will be put into effect from 2015 as part of a gradual relaxation of rules preventing urban couples from having more than one child. Zhai Zhenwu, director of the School of Sociology and Population Studies at Renmin University of China, told Legal Evening News that the central government is considering adjustments to the policy but has not finalized any changes.

The rise in the average age of China's population and the decline in birth rates is putting pressure on the government to relax its one-child policy.

Two years ago, the Guangdong government appealed to the central government to lift the ban on most couples and allow them to have a second child but the request was denied, the report said.