The 12th Five-Year Plan period, from 2011 to 2015, is an important time to readjust the family planning policy.

As the population ages, the workforce gradually shrinks. In addition, the sex ratio at birth has been hovering at a high level, and the scale of families is shrinking. Readjusting the family planning policy will not only to keep the labor force at a reasonable size and slow down the pace of aging, but also provide a better environment for the balanced development of China’s population in the long term.

After the People’s Republic of China was founded, China’s population increased from 540 to 830 million in 1970. The fertility rate reached5.4, and the population increasingly burdened the nation’s economy, society, resources and environment.

As a result, the Chinese government implemented a family planning policy, which became an essential national policy in 1982.

The policy successfully slowed the breakneck speed of population growth and attracted attention worldwide. So far, China has avoided the births of 400 million people and alleviated the pressure on its resources and environment . Accordingly, the population’s livelihood has improved significantly, thus creating a solid foundation for the country’s rapid economic growth.

The human development index in China increased from 0.53 at the time of the Reform and Opening Up policy’s implementation to 0.669 in 2012, one of the fastest improvements of this kind ever seen.