Two-child policy
The two-child policy is a government regulation that limits couples to having a maximum of two children, aimed at stabilizing population growth and conserving resources. This policy is often implemented through either penalties for those who have more than two children or incentives for families with fewer children. It is based on the concept of replacement-level fertility and has been adopted in various countries, including China, Iran, Vietnam, and India. In China, the two-child policy replaced the one-child policy in 2016 and was in effect until it transitioned to a three-child policy in 2021.
Countries such as Iran and Vietnam have also utilized similar family planning strategies, with Iran initially encouraging smaller families before shifting focus to increasing birth rates in recent years. The approach to managing births can vary significantly, including counting multiple births as a single event. While these policies are designed to address demographic concerns, they have also sparked discussions about human rights, social implications, and the balance between family planning and personal freedoms. Understanding these policies provides insight into the complexities of population management and cultural values surrounding family size across different societies.
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Two-child policy
Two-child policies, which limit the number of children couples are allowed to have to two, are either enforced or encouraged by governments trying to stabilize the population growth rate and conserve resources. Based on a replacement-level fertility theory, these policies use either penalties for couples who have additional children or incentives for couples who have fewer than two children. In many countries with two-child policies, the government counts the number of births, not actual children; thus, a multiple birth, such as twins or triplets, only counts as one birthing event. A two-child policy is a method of family planning and has been used in nations such as China, Myanmar (Burma), Vietnam, Iran, Egypt, and India.
Overview
China’s two-child policy was in effect from 2016 to 2021. This policy replaced the one-child policy that had been implemented throughout China beginning in 1978. The two-child policy was replaced by a three-child policy in 2021, which was eliminated in late 2021, allowing individuals to have as many children as they wanted.
Other nations sharply criticized the one-child policy as resulting in abandoned children, forced abortions, and a wide gap between male and female birth rates. Additionally, the policy was perhaps too successful in decreasing the number of births. Many Chinese families expect that children will support their older relatives. After two generations of the one-child policy, one child might be tasked with supporting two parents and four grandparents. The two-child policy allowed married couples to have two children and aimed to correct many of these problems. The Chinese policy regulated the number of births—if twins were conceived, the family was permitted to keep both children. Families that violated the policy were required to pay a "social maintenance fee" to cover services such as education and healthcare provided for the first child. This policy change did not apply to minority ethnic groups, which were already allowed to have two children if they lived in cities or more children if they lived in rural areas. Additional exemptions were sometimes granted in rural areas if the first child born to a couple was a female.
Hong Kong, which launched a family planning organization in the 1930s when the island was a British territory, began campaigning for a two-child policy most earnestly in the 1970s, using public advertisements, sex education, and access to birth control. Hong Kong rejoined mainland China in 1997, but the mainland Chinese one-child policy was not adopted in Hong Kong. As such, some mainland Chinese families tried to relocate permanently or temporarily to Hong Kong to have an additional child, sometimes called “birth tourism.”
Iran’s Tehran Declaration of 1967 indicated that family planning is a human right. By the early 1970s, the Iranian government introduced a plethora of family planning programs. One such program was a two-child policy that encouraged families to have one or two children and, after 1993, penalized families that had a third child. Beginning in 2006, however, families were encouraged to have additional children to prevent further decreases in the population. The 2021 Youthful Population and Protection of the Family law, among other legislation changes in the 2020s, attempted to increase the birth rate in Iran.
Throughout most of the twentith century, Vietnam encouraged families to have one or two children. This policy began in 1963 in North Vietnam as a way of controlling population increases in urban centers. Although there was support for continuing this policy after the reunification of Vietnam in 1975, the government did not enforce a two-child policy until the 1980s. The policy was encouraged through free access to birth control, encouraging delayed marriages, and forbidding families with more than two children from moving to urban centers, as well as punishing them through economic restrictions. In 2020, the country implemented a plan encouraging women to have their first child before the age of thirty. By the mid-2020s, the country's fertility rate was at an all-time low, and the health ministry began encouraging individuals to have more children earlier in life, especially in areas with low birth rates.
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