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Download The suggested relaxation of the family planning policy is expected to bring China roughly 13 million more babies in five or six years, top demographers said. The Communist Party of China decided last month to relax the rules by allowing couples to have a second child if one of the parents is an only child. Previously, a husband and wife were both required to be single children if they wanted a second child. "If China continues the old policy, the birth rate would continue falling and lead to a sharp drop of the population after reaching a peak," Li Bin, minister of the National Health and Family Planning Commission, said when elaborating on the "second child" bill to the top legislature on Monday. The State Council has submitted a bill to adjust the country's family planning policy to the bimonthly session of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, which runs from Monday to Saturday. The country's working population began to drop in 2017 by 3.45 million annually, and it is likely to fall by 8 million annually after 2023. Those aged 60 and above will reach 400 million and account for one-fourth of the population in the early 2030s, up from one-seventh now. "It is the right time to do it as the low birth rate is stable, the working population is still large and the burden to support the elderly is relatively light," Li said. The change would lead to a mini baby boom lasting five or six years with an additional 2 million births a year on average, said Zhai Zhenwu, director of the School of Sociology and Population Studies at Renmin University of China. | 
