On a cold night in October last year, the leaders of China announced the end of the one-child policy in Beijing, one of the most profound and largescale experiments that a government has imposed on its people.
My generation is not the only product of the one-child policy. For many, the policy, which came into effect in China in 1980, has already dictated their family structure. People don’t just start reproducing when the state says they can. Some of my older friends wanted more children, but now they mostly say they’ve long given up on the idea.