Second Child Decisions in China

In December 2015, China's government announced the end of the one-child policy, imposed on a majority of Chinese couples for the past 35 years. Simultaneously, a new "two-child policy" has been applied to the entire population. While this turnaround reflects an evident change of course on the part of the Chinese authorities, there is no guarantee that it will be enough to give a new impetus to fertility and to overcome the challenge of demographic aging, labor shortages, and sex imbalance in the medium term. Based on an extensive review of Chinese press and official websites, made available from 2014, this article examines the measures relaxing birth control policy adopted in 2013 and 2015 at the province level in order to determine to what extent they are likely to boost fertility.