China steps back from one child policy

**Merlin** · 24 Jul 09,, 15:34

This one-child policy of China does allow some exceptions. But now China's largest city Shanghai has gone one step further, or backward. It notices its population is aging. And it now encourages couples in this city to have two kids.

China steps back from one child policy

24 July [Times] Officials in Shanghai have issued a call encouraging couples to have a second child to help avert a labour shortage in the years to come.

China has operated a strict "one couple, one child" policy for 30 years, carefully monitoring pregnancies and even forcing abortions on women who already have children to control a populationg that is the world's largest at more than 1.3 billion.

But there are some exceptions to the policy: urban parents are permitted two offspring if both husband and wife are only children themselves; in rural areas, couples have long been allowed to have a second child if their first is a girl.

The appeal from officials in Shanghai is the first time in decades, however, that the government has actively encouraged procreation.
“We advocate eligible couples to have two kids because it can help to reduce the proportion of the ageing people and alleviate a workforce shortage in the future," said Xie Linli, director of the Shanghai Population and Family Planning Commission/

Zhang Meixin, a spokesman for the commission, said that there were already more than three million people over the age of 60 in Shanghai, or 21.6 per cent of the population. "That is already near the average figure of developed countries and is still rising quickly," he said.

By 2020, the proportion of elderly is expected to rise to 34 percent of the city’s population.

Across China as a whole, the population is rising at as similar rate and the working-age population is set to start shrinking from about 2015. The overall population will peak in 2030 with China becoming the first country to grow old before it grows rich – and thus able to support a nation of pensioners. ....

**chenium** · 24 Jul 09,, 21:25

China always has quite complicated policy, rather than the over general "one child plicy"
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**Proyas** · 25 Jul 09,, 17:17

We take it as a foregone conclusion that China's population will automatically rise once the one-child policy is lifted, but are there any demographic projections that examine whether Chinese people would respond or not?

**Merlin** · 25 Jul 09,, 23:50

Here's some information, related to continuation of the one-child policy.

China expected to see zero population growth by 2030: expert

21 July [xinhua] China, with its current 1.3 billion people, is expected to witness a zero population growth rate by 2030, a population expert predicted Tuesday.

"The momentum for China's population growth has weakened since the beginning of this century," Tian Xueyuan, former president of the Institute of Population and Labor Economics under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), said at an economic and social development forum here.

"Zero growth could be realized when the country's population hit the peak of 1.465 billion by 2030," he said. ....

China's family planning policy, which was formulated in the early 1970s, encourages late marriages and late childbearing, and limits most urban couples to one child and most rural couples to two children.

It's estimated that without the policy the country's population would be 400 million more than the current 1.3 billion people.

In the first half of the 21st century, China will witness a peak in its total population, working-age population, and elderly population, according to the National Population and Family Planning Commission.

One third of China's total population, about 437 million people, will be citizens over 60 years old in 2050, while its population of 16 to 60-year-olds will hit the peak of 990 million in 2016, government figures showed.

The work-age population will then drop to 870 million in 2050, according to government projection.

**kualaws** · 28 Jul 09,, 11:41

the situation is really embarrassing for chinese central government.
if we stop the control of birth rate by now, there is still too large population for china,
but if we still keep this policy, after 20 years, when most chinese poeple grow old, there would be not enough young generation pay pension for eldly.