China's three-children policy will see limited success

Significance

This year it increased the limit to three. The one-child policy has served more to exacerbate than to alleviate demographic problems, leaving China with an ageing population and shrinking workforce much sooner than other countries at this stage of economic development.

Impacts

• Rising infertility will play a part in depressing birth rates.
• Vested interests and the government's proclivity for social control will prevent the wholesale abolition of family planning.
• National and local authorities will introduce policies to promote reproduction; not all of them will necessarily be socially liberal.