One Child Policy

This is more detailed information on the One Child Policy in China.

In December 2002 the one-child policy became a LAW (versus a policy). The new version of the law is:
1. Families may have only 1 child if they are Han or of a minority group with 100,000 or more members in the group.
2. Families who live in rural China on farms may have a second child if the first child is a girl.
3. Infertile couples may have the husband's brother & brother's wife bear a child for the infertile couple to raise as their own.
4. Families living in Beijing and Shanghai can have 2 children if they openly pay the required fee to the government.
5. Couples who marry and are only children themselves may have two children.
6. Couples who have only one child may adopt a second child without penalty (though they still have to pay the adoption fees which are greater than the penalty for having a second child through birth).
7. Families who exceed the one-child policy or above exceptions, are fined and must pay for the over-quota children's schooling, medical and any other services normally provided by the government. Usually people to not register these children anyway - they are like non-citizens.

Minority groups are subject to the regulations the same as Han people if they are from a minority group with over 100,000 people. So groups like the Uyghur, Hui, Miao, Zhuang are large enough that they must abide by the policy and if rural (which most minorities are) they could have 2 children as per above.