China officially ends one child policy

Annie

Reading — Advanced Level
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Fill in the blanks with the missing sentences to complete the article

Missing sentences
  1. Sex-selective abortions and infanticide targeting girls were common.
  2. Few couples took up the opportunity to have a second child, however, due to limited income or long-term costs.

  4. The reason for this change is that China has a very large elderly population.

  5. Chinese authorities thanked this policy for China's economic boom.

  6. Many expect that the monitoring of births will continue to be enforced by the ruling government.

China's one-child policy has come to an end. On Sunday, December 27th, China's communist party signed into law a bill allowing married Chinese couples to have a maximum of two children. This aging population is causing the workforce in the country to shrink.

Although couples are now allowed to have two children, they cannot have more than that for the time being. Couples who had more than one child in the past were fined and often forced to have abortions. Also, socio-cultural preferences among the Chinese favor boys.

The former "one child policy" was instituted in the late 1970s. It is estimated that more than 400 million births were prevented thanks to this policy. In 2013, some reforms were made allowing couples to have two children if either parent was an only child.

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Discussion

Practice your writing skills by discussing the questions below

  1. What do you think about this new law?
  2. Do you think this new law will benefit or hurt China?
  3. What are the pros and cons of having only one child?
  4. Why do you think there is a preference among Chinese couples to have boy babies rather than girls?
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