China adopted a strict family planning policy as an essential national policy from the 1970s, allowing almost all couples in urban areas to have only one child. The policy is gradually relaxing since the late 1990s, and since 2011 all couples have been allowed to have a second baby across China if both of them have no siblings.
Due to family planning policies, population growth in China has dramatically decreased in the past three decades, bringing problems such as a rapidly ageing population and a very low fertility rate.
The number of people aged 60 or above in China reached 202 million in 2013, accounting for 14.9 percent of the total population. The figure will reach to 38 percent by 2050, according to population authorities. Total fertility rate in China fell to less than 1.5 in China, lower than most other countries, many experts believe.
Song Shuli, spokeswoman for the National Health and Family Planning Commission, the top government department in charge of population policies in China, said at a press conference in April that China will continue to stick to the family planning policy considering the constant burden on China's resources, environment and social development placed by its huge population, but she suggested further relaxation of the policy in the future.
"We will gradually made adjustments to the family planning policy," she said. "Allowing couples to have a second child if one of them has no sibling is not the end (of the adjustment) and we will go further."
"We have been conducting research and evaluations and will continue to improve population polices," she said.
"China will not see a surge in population growth even if all families are allowed to have two children," Yang, from Renmin University of China, said.
People's minds have changed after decades of the current family planning policy, and many women will not have more children even if they are allowed to for reasons such as career development and the economic burden of raising children, she said.
"Population management has been relaxing in recent years," she said. "Actually many people in rural areas and even in big cities, such as Beijing, who really want to have a second child have given birth to them even if they are not eligible to do so."
Those who will get the most benefit from the expected policy would be government employees, who are much more restricted by the policies than ordinary people, she said.
"But such people account for a very small portion of the total population, and it will not cause a surge in population growth even if they choose to have a second child."
