China May Change One-Child Policy

Economic changes mean less pressure for big families even as more workers are desirable

China's provocative newsweekly magazine Caijing features on its March 11 cover a photograph of a young woman cradling two small children. The cover text asks: "Population-Control Policy, Stay or Go?"

Discussion of the arguments for changing China's controversial one-child policy, and possibilities for that happening, has been heating up in Beijing in recent years. In addition to human rights concerns (gruesome photos of a 23-year-old woman forced to abort a 7-month-old fetus last year were posted online by her husband and aroused public ire), there's the stark demographic logic: Fewer babies mean fewer workers to support a population with an increasing proportion of elderly people, and little in the way of a social safety net.