How Big a Deal Are the Changes to China’s One-Child Policy?

Give the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Committee credit for unpredictability. All the signals sent out before this week’s highly-anticipated third plenary were that reforms on political rights were unlikely but that something significant might be in the works on China’s economic “reform and opening up.” Instead, the economic measures announced—particularly on the all-important issue of land reform—have been vague and difficult to parse. But the government has announced some significant measures on personal freedoms, including abolishing “reeducation through labor” camps, reducing land confiscations, reducing the number of crimes eligible for the death penalty, and—in what will be the most publicly scrutinized move—easing the notorious “one child policy.”

Under the new system, couples will be allowed to have a second baby if either parent is an only child—a significant slice of the population given that the policy has been in place since 1980. This isn’t quite as dramatic a change as it sounds. China has been gradually adding exceptions to the rule for years amid concerns about the country’s aging workforce.

In rural areas, couples were already...