BEIJING—China's family-planning agency is projecting a slow rollout for an easing of its one-child policy, underscoring reluctance by the government in moving too quickly to let some couples have two children and a law in place for decades.
rollout:首次展示，上线 unserscoring:强调 reluctance：勉强，不情愿
The policy change-announced Friday as part of a blueprint for economic and social reforms drawn up by the Communist Party leadership—will allow married couples to have two children if one spouse is an only child. The tweak drew cheers from many Chinese, who dislike the constraints on family size, and from demographers, who have long called for changes to redress a rapidly aging society.
draw up：起草，草拟 spouse：配偶 tweak：扭转，焦急 demographer：人口统计学家
redress：救济，赔偿，重新调整
A senior family-planning official, however, sounded a cautionary note in comments carried by state media over the weekend. The Xinhua news agency quoted Wang Peian, deputy director of the National Health and Family Planning Commission, as saying that the change wouldn't lead to a swell of new births. "China's population will not grow substantially in the short term," Xinhua quoted him as saying.
cautionary：警告的，劝诫的 deputy director：副局长，副厅长 swell：肿胀，隆起，漂亮的 substantially：大幅，大量地
A separate article in the state-owned China Daily cited the same Mr. Wang as saying that the government is putting in measures to avoid a "pileup" of births in a short time frame.
Though a national change, the plan contained no timeline, and each of China's 34 province-level administrations will need to revise its laws and to put the new policy into effect, Mr. Wang was quoted as saying.
The family-planning change seemed one of the easier wins in the leadership's 20-page reform blueprint. After decades of marked state interference in the economy, the program suggested a shift, promising to let markets play a stronger role in setting prices of natural resources and to limit government powers that approve stock-market listings and that exclude foreign investment. The plan also pledged to open the financial sector and put more money in the pockets of rural residents, who benefited less from the boom of the last decade, and signaled an intention to dismantle the country's controversial labor-camp network.
pledge to：承诺 rural resident：农村居民 signal：暗示，发信号 dismantle：拆除，取消
The breadth of promises surprised many analysts and ordinary Chinese because only days earlier the Communist Party leadership ended a policy meeting by releasing a vaguely worded commitment to reform.
vaguely：含糊的，模糊不清的
The caution on the family-planning change highlights the challenges in putting reforms into practice in China. Chinese leaders have generally preferred a slow approach, rolling out changes gradually and altering them in the process in case of resistance or unintended problems. While the central government issues directives and laws, provincial and lower-level authorities are tasked with carrying them out, and sometimes resist.
Population experts, who have been pushing the government to ease its controls, said that one likely source of resistance is the family-planning commission.
A separate agency for decades, the family-planning commission was merged earlier this year with the Health Ministry. Still the family-planning bureaucracy employs more than 500,000 full-time workers and six million part-time workers down to the village. They collect billions of dollars in fines and have fought for years against policy changes, fearing job and funding losses. Last year, the commission collected 16.9 billion yuan ($2.75 billion) in fines, according to an earlier Xinhua report.
bureaucracy：官僚主义
With the change to allow more couples to have two children, family planners fear a backlash from couples who have recently been fined for having a second child, said Wang Feng, a demographer at China's Fudan University. "Logistics of carrying this out could be a nightmare," said Mr. Wang.
Family-planning officials may also worry that the change is a prelude to completely abolishing the rules, demographers say. A slow rollout could deflate the popularity boost the government got from announcing the change, said Mr. Wang, the demographer. "People saw this as a good gesture from the government,"—an acknowledgment that it could no longer sustain an outdated, unpopular policy, he said.
prelude：前奏，序曲 deflate：缩小，打击
"This is progress," said Guan Xiaofeng, 38 years old and a father of a 3-year old girl. "Each person should have the right to have more than a single child," said Mr. Guan, an engineer in Beijing who qualifies to have a second child under the new rules. Though he has a sister, his younger wife, born in 1981 amid the one-child policy, has no siblings.
sublings：兄弟姐妹
Initiated in 1980, the one-child policy aimed to squelch explosive population growth encouraged in the largely agrarian society under Chairman Mao Zedong. Leaders hoped the population control would improve quality of life in a crowded, resource-constrained country. Exemptions have existed for ethnic minorities, for couples in which both partners are single children and in many rural areas.
squelch：消除，镇压 agrarian：土地的，耕地的 exemption：免除，豁免 ethnic minorities：少数民族
As such, the new change largely affects urban Chinese, a group that is increasingly affluent and at times critical of the government. But, demographers said, the policy's effect on population growth is likely to limited. The China Daily reported that the change affects 5.8% of the population.
affluent：富裕的，丰富的，流畅的
Past arguments against changing the policy included maintaining China's food security. With a fifth of the world's population and limited arable land, the government sets a target of 95% self-sufficiency in grain production. But last year it fell short, 88% in volume terms, according to the Center for Chinese Agricultural Policy.
self-sufficiency：自给自足，自力更生
Demographers, however, have said that the new policy is too timid. The efficacy of the population controls and the unwillingness of many well-off Chinese to have more children have caused the birthrate to plummet.
timid：胆小的，羞怯的 efficacy：功效，效力 plummet：垂直落下，骤然跌落
The numbers entering the workforce are shrinking while the portion of elderly are rising. Between 2010 and 2030, China's labor force is expected to lose 67 million workers, according to projections from the United Nations.
The new policy will add in Mr. Wang's estimates of about 1 million to 2 million new births per year for the next three years—not enough, he said, to supply enough future workers.
Even if they could have more children, some Chinese cite the expense of doing so as a deterrent. An online poll over the weekend on Sina Corp.'s popular Weibo microblog service drew 26,000 respondents and while a majority said they would have another child under the rule change, more than a third said they wouldn't. Some naysayers cited the high costs of educating and raising a child.
deterrent：威慑，妨碍物
Costs are a barrier even for those like Mr. Guan, the engineer, who are excited about the policy change.
"Policy is one thing, but our income, security and prosperity is another," Mr. Guan said, adding, "It's a matter of finances." Mr. Guan said his two-bedroom apartment isn't big enough for another child and his job isn't sufficiently stable to feed another mouth to the dinner table.