After months of debate and calls for reform, the Chinese government has decided to relax its one-child policy, says state-run Xinhua news agency. The easing of the rules is one of the highlights of the 60 reforms proposed by the Communist Party Central Committee, which was released to the public on Friday.

The one-child policy has been enforced in China since 1979 and in the past decade has sparked much criticism. Previous revisions to the policy allowed couples to have a second child only if both of them were only children themselves. Many parts of rural China have been exempted from the one-child policy in order for couples to have more children to help manage farms. 

The latest revision allows couples to have a second child even if only one of the parents was an only child, Xinhua reported.

While this is a revision to the policy by the central government, it will ultimately come down to the provincial-level governments to implement the change. Some provinces could still decide to hold out on this reform if they feel like it would negatively effect population growth, health care, and food supplies in the region. 

“There will not be a uniform nationwide timetable for the starting implementation, but it would be inadvisable for the lag in the timing of implementation between each area to be too long,” said Wang Pei’an, a senior official in the National Health and Family Planning Commission, to Xinhua news agency.

This change could mean an additional one million to two million births in China per year—on top of the current 15 million births each year, said Wang Feng a demographer who teaches at Fudan University in Shanghai.

Many claim that the reasoning behind the relaxation of the one-child policy has to do with China’s diminishing work force, its slowed population growth, and its hopes to offset an aging population.

So far, Chinese President Xi Jinping has been hailed as a leader who is capable of balancing conflicting interests on serious issues.

According to the New York Times, Xi is attempting to fortify a traditional one-party rule while making China's economy “more responsive to market forces" and also "giving its people greater social and economic freedom."

Since coming to power in March 2013, President Xi Jinping has made many reforms aimed at improving China’s economy and expanding human rights, while still upholding communist ideals. Some have even compared him to the great Chinese reformist, Deng Xiaoping.

Reach Staff Reporter Joseph Krassenstein here.