Strict birth control policies create 900 million chinese 'only children'

China’s one-child policy has created a generation of only children that now number 900 million, but most Chinese would still like to have two children if they could, a senior family planning official said today.

From the implementation of the one-child policy at the end of the 1970s through last year, some 900 million only children have been born, most in cities, said Zhao Baige, vice minister for China’s National Population and Family Planning Commission.

The Chinese government contends that the one-child policy has helped prevent 400 million births, and aided China’s rapid economic development.

Zhao said 60% of Chinese would still prefer to have two children but that the government has no plan to relax birth limits.

“We would have to study the effects, positive and negative, that might occur if we implemented a two-child policy,” she said.

The government allows rural families to have two children and ethnic minorities to have three.

In recent years, it has also let couples where both the husband and wife are only children to have two kids in order to spread the burden of taking care of the elderly.