I think with the right enforcement, it probably does. In fact, to a lot of politicians, it works too well and they find themselves in a pickle because they find themselves grappling with shrinking workforces and an aging population.
I see you are from the Philippines, so Singapore and China are case-studies that are close to you!
Population control policies such as China's 'one-child' policy would often be unsuccessful unless the government is ready to incur huge 'monitoring' cost. More importantly, such policies could be distortionary, as it interferes with individual preferences and decisions. I suppose the incentive-based child policies - such as baby-bonus schemes - tend to work better overall. It is flexible and can be tweaked with changing demographic needs, such as shrinking workforce and graying population.
Yes it works. That is people follow the same rules of demography that all other animals follow.
The social/legal/ethical aspects can be difficult. This is both adding more people produces a growing economy and social services where the young may be paying for elderly care with a promise that it will be your turn eventually. Immigration may be one problem as well as people who try to cheat the system. The sex ratio may cause social unrest: if one sex is socially valued more than the other and there is a limit to the number of children then the undervalued sex will become a smaller portion of the population.
Social engineering can be done in very bad ways and there have been a number of dystopian stories of such. On the other hand, letting nature take its course could also be quite terrible. Our best hope would be disease of some type. The alternative is that there will be millions of starving hopless people on the borders of the few countries that still have water and food (or the perception of having water and food).
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