Far fewer couples than expected have applied for permission to have a second child, a year after Beijing announced the relaxation of its one-child policy to encourage births in an ageing China.

The National Health and Family Planning Commission announced yesterday that “nearly 1m” couples had applied to have a second child after Beijing decided to allow families where either parent was an only child to bear two. The law had previously granted that concession to urban couples where both parents were only children.

The government said at the time that about 11m families would become eligible under the relaxed rules, which were implemented province by province from January last year. It estimated that 2m extra children would be born each year under the new policy. But even with nearly 1m couples applying to have a second child, demographic experts say not all will actually have one.