China has announced it is eliminating a trio of agencies responsible for enforcing family planning policies in a further sign the Government may be planning to scrap long-standing limits on the number of children its citizens can have.

Key points: The agencies will become one body, focusing on improving birth policy and family assistance

The agencies will become one body, focusing on improving birth policy and family assistance The move comes after a new China Post stamp featured a family with three piglets

The move comes after a new China Post stamp featured a family with three piglets An ageing population and shrinking workforce in China may be behind the change

State-media has hinted in recent weeks that China, the world's most populous nation, may be preparing to end its decades-long policy of determining the number of children that couples can have.

Last month, speculation of a further easing on child numbers mounted after a new stamp unveiled by China Post featured a family of two pigs with three cheerful piglets, followed weeks later by a draft of the civil code dropping all mention of family planning.

The move is part of a reorganisation of the National Health Commission, that creates a new single department called the Division of Population Monitoring and Family Development responsible for "improving birth policy and to organise implementation, and to establish and improve the system of extraordinary family assistance for family planning".

The commission still retains responsibility for "family planning management and facilitation work" and for the "improvement of family planning policy", it said.

The Year of the Pig stamp that shows a five-member pig family was released last month. ( Reuters: Du Yang/CNS )

"Family planning" was dropped from the commission's name in March, as part of a sweeping overhaul to reform government departments and reduce policymaking red tape.

Alarmed by the rapidly aging population and shrinking workforce, China abandoned its notorious one-child policy two years ago to allow two children, replacing a law from 1979.

The change produced a nearly 8 per cent increase in births in 2016, with nearly half of the babies born to couples who already had a child.

However, that appeared to have been a one-time increase, with 17.2 million births in the country last year, down from 17.9 million in 2016.

Meanwhile, the proportion of the population aged 60 or older increased last year to 17.3 per cent.

According to the UN Population Division, this is a near 10 per cent increase compared to 7.4 per cent of the population in 1950.

China currently has the world's largest population at 1.4 billion, which is expected to peak at 1.45 billion in 2029.

While authorities credit the one-child policy with preventing 400 million extra births, many demographers argue that the fertility rate would have fallen anyway as China's economy developed and education levels rose.

Over its 36 years of existence, the policy vastly inflated the ratio of boys to girls as female foetuses were selectively aborted in line with a preference for male offspring.

China is predicted to have around 30 million more men than women by the end of the decade.

AP/Reuters