Even though China sticks to its’ national family planning policy, the country recently promised to improve its’ policies in aspects like reproduction, migration and gender equality to achieve a more balanced and sustainable population development.

Under the “one child policy” over the past three decades, China has made a historic transition from one featuring a high birth rate and high population growth rate to one with a low birth rate and low rate of population growth.  China experienced rapid economic growth during the last decades, but in the coming decades, the country faces demographic challenges including an aging population, which represents a particualr challenge for the old-age security system.

Moreover, China’s one child policy results in a huge sex ratio imbalance.  This imbalance is caused by China’s traditional preference of boys over girls, which leads to selective abortion and female infanticides. The fact that China plans to continue its’ one child policy to the year 2015 at least  implies that gender ratio imbalances are likely to increase over the next years, even though China’s authorities declared to strictly prohibit abortions for sex selection and to better implement policies encouraging gender equity.

Source:  blog author’s contribution and  China Daily 21/12/2010