Birth control regulations, Fifth People's Conference, 17 May 1986
Annual Review of Population Law 14: 10
1987
ISSN/ISBN: 0364-3417 PMID: 12346593 Document Number: 383837
These regulations authorize the following exceptions to the one child per couple policy for urban couples: a couple may have a second child when a) the first child is deformed with a non-hereditary disease that prevents the child from growing up to be an able-bodied worker; b) when one spouse of a remarried couple has had only one child and the other spouse has had none, or when both have had a child, but the children have been placed by court order in the custody of the ex-spouses; c) when the wife becomes pregnant and the couple has already adopted a child because either one or both spouses was medically determined to be sterile; d) when both spouses are single children; and e) when either or both of the spouses have worked in a mine or under water continuously for more than five years. For rural couples, the regulations described in a) to d) above are applicable. In addition, a couple may have a second child if their first child is a girl. The interval between the birth of the two children must be no less than four years. Ethnic minority couples living in minority regions are allowed to have two children, and in special circumstances three children. Having a fourth child is strictly forbidden.