TEXTO:
China’s one-child policy
China’s top legislature approved resolutions to
officially amend its controversial one-child policy. The
changes to the one-child policy will mean couples will
be allowed to have two children if one of the parents was
[5] an only child, according to the state-run Xinhua news
agency. Currently, both parents must be sole children to
be eligible for a second child.
The one-child policy, which started in the 1970s, is
believed to have prevented some 400 million births,
[10] according to Xinhua. Although the policy has been
applauded by many for slowing down China’s rapid
population growth, it has also been widely criticized for
resulting in forced abortions and hefty fines for families.
Some critics say the law hurts China’s elderly, who
[15] typically rely on their children for support in old age, and
even constrains economic growth as the working-age
population begins to decline. Since the 1990s, the birth
rate has declined, with Chinese women giving birth to an
average of 1.4 to 1.6 children.
[20] The world’s most populous nation will soon have
too few people – or, rather, too few of the right kind of
people. More than three decades of government-
mandated family planning have succeeded beyond the
architects’ most grandiose dreams. Add to that the natural
[25] inclination of richer, more educated people to limit their
family size, and China’s population growth is projected
to gradually diminish within fifteen years. That would leave
the People’s Republic with a distorted population: too
few youths, too few women and too many elderly.
[30] Off icials say the easing of the one-child policy does
not mean China is ending its family planning. “China still
has a large population. This has not changed. Many of
our economic and social problems are rooted in this
reality,” said Jiang Fan, a National People’s Congress
[35] deputy, in Chinese media. “We cannot risk the population
growing out of control.”
PARK, Madison. China’s one-child policy. Disponível em: http:// www.cnn.com/2013/12/28/world/asia/china-one-child-policy-official. Acesso em: 13 jun. 2014. Adaptado.
The conjunction “Although” (l. 10) is synonymous with
