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Chapter 2 Fertility Control

Article 9 Citizens who are married according to law shall practice family planning and are forbidden to give out-of-plan births.

Article 10 Deferred marriage and childbearing shall be encouraged.

Deferred marriage refers to marriage in which both parties are at least three years older than their legal age for marriage. Deferred childbearing refers to first childbirth by women who have deferred marriage or by women aged 24 and over.

Article 11 Fertility behaviors shall be conducted under the guidance of the government in a planned manner. Second birth is under strict control and third birth forbidden.

Article 12 Couples who fall into any one category of the following can apply to have a second birth:

1. The first child is diagnosed by county-level medical institutions and confirmed by medical institutions at prefecture/city level to have non-genetic defects and considered unable to grow up to be a normal laborer;

2. The couple are diagnosed of being infertile but become pregnant after adopting a child lawfully;

3. Both parties are returned overseas Chinese or compatriots from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan and have only one child;

4. Either party is a veteran soldier with disability of second class, second degree and above or is the only child of a martyr;

5. Couples who have only a female child, with either party having worked in a mine for at least a consecutive five years and still doing the same job;

6. Remarried couples with one party having a child from previous marriage and the other having none.

Article 13 Rural residents who meet the conditions of Article 12 and who fall into any one category of the following, subject to application and approval, can have a second birth:

1. The couple have only one female child and indeed have difficulty with their daily life;

2. The husband is married to families that have no son and look after his parents-in-law (only one daughter is eligible if the family has more than one daughter);

3. Couples who live in remote mountainous areas for at least five years and are still living there;

4. Both parties are members of ethnic minority groups.

Article 14 Couples with either party being a rural resident, who have only one female child and the child is an agricultural resident, shall be treated in accordance with Clause 1 of Article 13.

Article 15 Couples who are eligible for having a second birth are encouraged to have only one.

For couples who are eligible for a second birth, the woman must be over 28 years of age and has a birth interval of at least four years.