China's ruling Communist Party announced Thursday that the country will start allowing all married couples to have two children, abolishing an unpopular policy that has limited many urban families to only one child for more than three decades.
The decision is the most significant easing of family-planning policies that were long considered some of the party's most onerous intrusions into family life and had been gradually relaxed in recent years. The restrictions led to an imbalanced sex ratio because of a traditional preference for boys, and draconian enforcement that sometimes included forced abortions.
The news elated 36 . . .
