China Daily: “Increasing number of eligible parents want another baby.
Beijing mother Han Xue had a second child last year, 10 years after her first. But despite eligibility the process was far from easy and entailed a bureaucratic paper chase.
Han, 31, felt that two children would keep each other company and provide better support to her and her husband in old age.
“As soon as my first child turned 4, we filed an application for a permit to have a second child to the government office that oversees the street where I was born,” Han said.
Han and her husband were both single children and allowed, under the family planning policies introduced in the 1970s, to have a second child.
An increasing number of parents in this category are opting to do so.
Nanjing offers a prime example. Applications filed in the capital of Jiangsu province surged to 600 last year from 85 in 2007, family planning authorities said.
Meanwhile, the number of urban couples eligible to have two children has also increased as the single-child generation comes of marriageable age.
About 10,000 couples are eligible in Nanjing annually, and authorities estimate that by 2015 up to 17 percent of couples in the city will be entitled to have two children.
Already, about 15 percent of women in Nanjing who booked maternity beds for the second half of 2012 were expecting their second baby.
Since 1985, couples in the province are allowed a second child if both parents were single children.
In the province of Jiangxi, the story is much the same.”
via Second child is a growing option |Society |chinadaily.com.cn.
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