One, being a decrease in the overall size of the country's population. In the late 1970s, with the population growing to nearly two billion people, a change needed to be made to continue providing for the population and society, and the Chinese government felt the best way was to limit family size to only one child per family unit. Another positive aspect of the policy is that, in 2000, when the population did not exceed the 1.2 billion mark, the policy was updated, allowing rural couples to have two children. Now, this may not say much to some, but to many families it meant a lot to have this opportunity. This process also limited forced abortions and fines for exceeding the one-child limit (Maureen J.