Second child more about couples' aspirations

A rather remarkable turnaround has occurred in China. For a country famous for having the most comprehensive sets of policies designed to limit births, it is now introducing new policies to support parents who have a second child - from a planned tax relief to possible extension of maternity leave and expansion of free education.

For some time now, studies have observed family planning officials in some large cities actively encouraging couples to take advantage of their rights to have a second child. In this way, local governments could become ever more proactive in designing policies to support couples to have a second child.

Governments across the Asia-Pacific region have been introducing increasingly far-reaching policies in recent years to support and encourage childbearing in an attempt to stem extremely rapid aging resulting from very low fertility rates. Perhaps the most expansive and famous is in Singapore. Elsewhere, policies to support childbearing both financially and in terms of childcare and parental leave have been introduced in Japan and the Republic of Korea.