BEIJING (Reuters) - China, worried about an ageing population, is studying scrapping its controversial one-child policy but will not do away with family-planning policies altogether, a senior official said on Thursday.
With the world's biggest population straining scarce land,water and energy resources, China has enforced rules torestrict family size since the 1970s. Rules vary but usuallylimit families to one child, or two in the countryside.
"We want incrementally to have this change," Vice Ministerof the National Population and Family Planning Commission ZhaoBaige told reporters in Beijing.
"I cannot answer at what time or how, but this has become abig issue among decision makers," Zhao added. "The attitude isto do the studies, to consider it responsibly and to set it upsystematically."
The average number of children that would be born to awoman over her lifetime has decreased to 1.8 in China today,from 5.8 in the 1970s, and below the replacement rate of 2.1.
China says its policies have prevented several hundredmillion births and boosted prosperity, but experts have warnedof a looming social time-bomb from an ageing population andwidening gender disparity stemming from a traditionalpreference for boys.
Still, the government has previously expressed concern thattoo many people are flouting the rules.
State media said in December that China's population wouldgrow to 1.5 billion people by 2033, with birth rates set tosoar over the next five years.
Officials have also cautioned that population controls arebeing unravelled by the increased mobility of China's 150million-odd migrant workers, who travel from poor rural areasto work in more affluent eastern cities.
China has vowed to slap heavier fines on wealthy citizenswho flout family planning laws in response to the emergence ofan upper class willing to pay standard fines to have morechildren.
(Reporting by Lucy Hornby; Writing by Ben Blanchard;Editing by Nick Macfie)
