China warns of "population rebound"

07/05/2007 07:04

BEIJING (Reuters) - China’s top family planning official has warned that the country, the world’s most populous, could face a population rebound as the newly rich pay to have more children, state media reported on Monday.

Zhang Weiqing, director of the National Population and Family Planning Commission, also said rural residents were still marrying below the legal marriageable ages of 22 for men and 20 for women, contributing to more births.

"Early marriages are still prevailing in some parts of the country, especially rural areas, which goes against the family planning policy," Xinhua news agency quoted Zhang as saying.

China, which is home to 1.3 billion people, introduced strict family planning policies more than 25 years ago to try to curb population growth.

Most urban residents are restricted to one child, while those in rural areas are encouraged to have one but allowed more in some circumstances. Those who have babies in violation of the restrictions are punished with heavy fines.

But Zhang said China’s wealthy were showing disdain for the policy by paying to have as many children as they wanted.

"The number of rich people and celebrities having more than one child is on a rapid increase, and nearly 10 percent of them even have three," Xinhua cited a survey by the Family Planning Commission as saying.

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A Chinese health official has also said that rural women were risking maternal heath by delivering babies in violation of the restrictions at home or in unregulated clinics.

"Some policy-breaking pregnant women, who dared not apply any financial aid of childbearing for fear of legal punishment, chose to deliver babies at home or in substandard private clinics," Xinhua quoted Vice Minister of Health Jiang Zuojun as saying in a separate report.

In the south-eastern province of Jiangxi, half of maternal deaths were from pregnancies that fell outside of family planning restrictions, the report said.

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