China does away with family planning offices

BEIJING (Reuters) - China’s health commission is getting rid of three offices that were previously dedicated to family planning, it announced late on Sunday, the latest signal that Beijing may further reduce restrictions on childbirth to combat an aging population.

Last month, speculation of a further easing mounted after a new stamp unveiled by China Post featured a family of two pigs with three cheerful piglets, followed weeks later by a draft of the civil code dropping all mention of family planning.

China has loosened its family planning policy as its population grays, birth rates slow and its workforce declines. In 2016, the government allowed couples in urban areas to have two children, replacing a controversial one-child policy enforced since 1979. While China’s population growth fell well below the world average under the one-child policy, Chinese policymakers have become wary of falling birth rates and a rapidly growing aging population.

As of 2017, people aged 60 and above accounted for about 16.2 percent of China’s population, compared to 7.4 percent in 1950, according to the U.N. Population Division.

Bloomberg reported in May that China was planning to scrap all limits on the number of children a family can have by the end of 2018.