China has scrapped its one-child policy, allowing couples to have two children for the first time in more than three decades, China’s official news agency tweeted on Thursday.
If you’re Chinese, tell us what you think of the policy change. Will you have a second child, or is it too late or financially unattractive? Or maybe you’re an only child who would have liked a brother or sister? And what does the policy change tell us about the state of the country?
Over the past 35 years, the one-child rule has been brutally enforced with sterilisations, abortions and infanticide. The policy is blamed for creating a demographic catastrophe and a dramatic gender imbalance meaning that millions of men will never find female partners.
Low fertility rates, a rapidly ageing population and a shrinking labour force meant the one-child policy was relaxed last year. Although rural couples whose first child is a girl, and parents who are only children themselves have been allowed to have a second child for roughly a year, it has failed to boost population growth.
For some families, the policy change will have come too late. And for others the financial cost of having two children will make a second child impossible.
Share your thoughts using the form below and we’ll use a selection in our reporting. You do not have to answer every question.
