China, the most populous country in the world with nearly 1.4 billion people, introduced its one-child policy at the end of the 1970s to curb the rapid population growth.
The policy enforced at the provincial level requires couples violating it to pay a fine, or in some cases, to undergo abortions. The one-child policy completed 36 years of enforcement on 6 October 2014.
Although the one-child policy has averted 400 million births since 1980, helping families pull out of poverty, it has become unpopular and leaders fear that the country's ageing population will both reduce the labour pool and exacerbate elderly care issues, the BBC reported.
The one-child policy has on the whole been strictly enforced, though some exceptions exist, including for ethnic minorities.
The traditional preference for boys has created a gender imbalance as some couples opt for sex-selective abortions, because of which, demographers predict that by the end of the decade, China will have 24 million "leftover men" who, because of China's gender imbalance, will not be able to find a wife.
As part of the plan to raise fertility rates and ease the financial burden on a rapidly ageing population, China relaxed its one-child policy and said it would allow millions of families to have two children.
To mark the policy's 36th anniversary on 6 October, photographer Carlos Barria asked a person born in each year since China's One Child Policy has been in existence -- from a man born in 1979, to a baby born in 2014 -- if they would have liked to have any siblings, to which most of them said yes.