Family planning policy should be loosened: expert

Beijing (CNS) -- Regarding the social challenges posed by China's managed demographics, deputy to National People's Congress Ji Baocheng suggested on Wednesday "the government should advocate a one-child family, permit two-child families, and disallow three kids or more."

Ji Baocheng, former president of Renmin University, has done specialized research on the government's family planning policy and submitted multiple proposals to reconsider that policy to China's top legislature over these years. But a satisfying answer was not forthcoming from the authorities.

According to the latest census in 2010, China is home to 170 million citizens in their sixties and above, said Ji, and the country is on the path to "getting old before getting rich."

Now is the time for the government to adjust family planning policy, insisted Ji, as a two-child policy will not only ease the situation for the masses of aging citizens, but also endow people with equal reproductive rights.

The inequality stems from the ineffectiveness of the policy; to simply fine those who have a second child means that those who can afford it may do so. Rural couples with a second baby are fined 2,000-3,000 yuan, and those in cities about 200,000 yuan. Only those who work for government agencies, state-owned enterprises and institutions have different, and perhaps more effective, incentives to respect the one-child policy – career and social pressures rather than financial penalties.