After the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress in China passed a resolution to reform the family planning policy in December 2013, it signaled a relaxation of a policy that has been in place in the world’s most populous country for more than 30 years. Families in China will now be allowed a second child if at least one of the parents is an only child, a shift that affects about 10 million couples. Before the policy change, only families with two only-child parents were allowed to have two babies.

Notwithstanding its controversy, China’s family planning policy has played a pivotal role in lifting the standard of living of many people in a once poverty-stricken country.

In the wake of the epic reform, should African countries consider similar family planning versions of their own? Could a one child - or even limited child - policy help alleviate Africa’s poverty?

Dr. Allen Stamps, an experienced Johannesburg-based demographer and lecturer at Midrand University, said an African society is formulated in way that compliments high fertility and large surviving families as financially and socially productive.

“Each new child is celebrated, and it is generally the case of the more the merrier. In the Africa context, there is no family planning - in the sense of attempts to achieve average family size or call a stop to increase the family beyond an acceptable size,” Stamps said.

However, Natasha Madzingirami, a demographer at the University of Zimbabwe, said Nigeria is one of the African countries that needs to limit births to three children per family.

Nigeria’s population is expected to surpass that of the United States by 2050, according to recent UN projections that predict the West African country could become the world’s third most populous by the end of this century.

“I am really fearful of the population explosion in Nigeria. It is not healthy. Nigeria should work toward attaining a maximum of three children per family,” Madzingirami said.

Peter Hans, a pastor with a Johannesburg-based church, Spirit Embassy International, believes restricting a married couple to have a single child “is an abomination in the eyes of God.”

The government has no obligation to intervene in the personal decisions of their citizens whether or not to have children, Hans said. Couples have a fundamental right to determine for themselves the number and spacing of their children.

Hans said in an African context, a one-child policy seems polemic, “as a man’s status is valued by the number of children he has.”

“Children are [seen as] a blessing from God. Children can assist in different forms of work at the home,” Hans said.

As a proponent of natural family planning, he said, “It [natural family planning] is cheap, effective, without side effects, and may be particularly acceptable to people in areas of poverty.”

Gabriel Letswalo, a University of the Witwatersrand postgraduate student in sociology, supports that assertion. Letswalo said restricting family size is ideologically problematic in Africa, where there are various homogeneous groups.

“Some black Africans might construe it as latent way to exterminate the race of black people,” he said.

However, a researcher at the South African National Health and Family Planning Commission, Sibongile Dube, disagrees. Dube said if the one-child policy is introduced in many African countries where the resources are not adequate to cater for big families, it will boost the economy of the country.

Dube said South Africa’s young generation prefers to have a single child because of the spiraling cost of living.

“As the costs of raising a child increases dramatically, people care more about the quality of a child’s life, not the number [of children],” Dube said.

She said the economic consequences of having children in South Africa is very much the same as elsewhere in Africa, where the notion of wanting children to be successful is easier to ensure parents can concentrate their time and money on just one child.

Another sociologist, Mary Thames, concurs. “With fewer children, any government will have more share of its export revenue per person and thus be able to provide better education, better housing, water supply, electricity, sanitation ... and when people see these benefits, they will appreciate the benefit of a one-child policy.”

(Reporting from Zimbabwe)