全面放开二孩 (quánmiàn fàngkāi èr hái): Allowing all couples to have a second child

According to the communiqué issued on Thursday after the conclusion of the Fifth Plenary Session of the 18th Communist Party of China Central Committee, the family planning policy is to be changed to allow all couples to have two children.

China's family planning policy was first introduced in the late 1970s to rein in the surging population by allowing most urban couples to have only one child and most rural couples to have two children, if the first child was a girl. This policy has effectively controlled China's population, but it has also resulted in a looming shortage in the working age population.

In the face of the ever-declining birth rate and the challenge of an aging society, the central government began to ease the family planning policy in 2013, allowing couples of which the husband or wife is an only child to have a second child. However, statistics show that till this June, only 1.5 million of the 11 million eligible couples nationwide applied to have a second child.

The new adjustment aims to rebalance China's population and is expected to help the nation achieves its short-term and long-term goals of social and economic development.