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The one-child policy was introduced in the 1970s and was so successful it raised fears about an aging population. Shutterstock/stockvideoshooter

China relaxed its one-child policy - now there's a baby boom

Almost 12 million Chinese babies were born in the first eight months of the year.

OVER HALF THE babies born in China in the first eight months of 2017 were second children after the relaxation of the longstanding one-child rule.

The number of parents choosing to have a second child has surged since Beijing loosened strict caps on family size in January 2016 to try to rejuvenate the ageing labour force.

Some 52%  of the 11.6 million babies born between January and August have an older sibling, said the state news agency Xinhua, citing Wang Peian, deputy head of the National Health and Family Planning Commission.

That compares to about 45% in 2016, when 18.5 million babies were born in hospital, the highest since 2000, according to the report.

Last year’s baby boom was thought to be partly due to the relaxation of the one-child policy, but also because 2016 was the lunar year of the monkey — considered a particularly auspicious zodiac sign to be born under.

Since the late 1970s the world’s most populous country had restricted most couples to only a single child, with violators facing fines and even forced abortions.

But concern about an ageing population and a shrinking workforce saw the country loosen the policy at the beginning of 2016.

While some parents had long been allowed more than one child, the change allowed every family a second.

Wang said China plans a range of new policies to support the second child agenda, including on tax, housing and employment.

The report said China had allocated some 2.9 billion yuan (€378 million) to build maternity and pediatric hospitals last year and plans to add 140,000 more obstetricians and midwives by 2020.

Read: Facial recognition used to publicly shame jaywalkers and toilet paper thieves in China >

Read: India is set to get its first bullet train thanks to Japan >

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    Mute Fintan O HEifernain
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    Feb 16th 2013, 12:50 PM

    I wouldn’t put anything on Facebook that I wouldn’t be comfortable putting on a billboard in my home town. Seriously, some of the stuff some people put up you’d wonder about their sanity to be honest

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    Mute Kevin Hosford
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    Feb 16th 2013, 4:10 PM

    Some people share way to much info about their lives, kids, education even personal things like health and financial status it’s shocking! Websites like Facebook really need to educate people continually about the risks and precautions they need to know.

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    Mute Julie
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    Feb 16th 2013, 11:26 AM

    I don’t like the sound of this !

    http://youtu.be/OpIP71dDufw

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    Mute Kevin Hosford
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    Feb 16th 2013, 4:07 PM

    If you use either google or Facebook then your privacy is already gone.

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    Mute Julie
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    Feb 16th 2013, 5:25 PM

    That’s very true but this legislation in America is not good news

    http://youtu.be/VLVXUBEMD9w

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    Mute Jason O'Leary
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    Feb 16th 2013, 12:35 PM

    Just in time for the new cyber security legislation, the how convenient is that.

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    Mute Julie
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    Feb 16th 2013, 12:39 PM

    Nothing is convenient in American politics ( you could also say irish politics in some cases) everything is precisely planned with lots of support from all sectors, media etc

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    Mute John Gleeson
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    Feb 16th 2013, 12:04 PM

    Got an email during the week from Facebook saying my account was accessed from Belarus. Am I alone?

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    Mute Jason Culligan
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    Feb 16th 2013, 12:57 PM

    Had an email from Google telling me they blocked someone logging in on my gmail from Vietnam a while back. Just a strong reminder that you should change your passwords roughy every 6 months. Make complex passwords and change every 6 months so that, if someone is trying to crack your passwords, by the time they do you’ll have a completely different one.

    Internet safety cannot be preached enough really.

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    Mute Declan O'Neill
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    Feb 16th 2013, 4:31 PM

    @Jason, so true. Here’s a great page to tell you how strong a chosen password is and how long it would take to crack using brute force.
    https://www.grc.com/haystack.htm

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    Mute Carl Douglas
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    Feb 16th 2013, 12:04 PM

    Just as Mitt Romney predicted.

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    Mute youdontknowme
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    Feb 16th 2013, 12:12 PM

    China

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    Mute Daniel Murray
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    Feb 16th 2013, 12:33 PM

    The Chinese? Ha ha ha! What a joke!

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    Mute Colm McDonagh
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    Feb 16th 2013, 12:51 PM

    A great bunch of lads!

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