Two-child policy is essential if China is to avoid a demographic crisis
Paul Yip says China's change to its one-child policy aims to mitigate the effects of an ageing population
Beijing's announcement that it is relaxing its 35-year-old one-child policy should be welcomed. It is a timely and correct decision; hopefully, it can mitigate the ageing pressure in China and avoid the potential demographic crisis arising from a very skewed and unsustainable population distribution.
At present, about 15 per cent of China's population is aged 60 or over and that figure is expected to double by 2050.
Despite its impressive economic development in the past two decades, the risk of getting old before getting rich is a very real one for China; the size of the elderly population has imposed tremendous financial pressure on the retirement and pension system.
A very low total fertility rate of 0.7 live births per woman has been observed in Shanghai. Currently, there is a severe shortage of people of working age to replace the ageing workforce, leading to problems finding enough people for its factories.
Families with no children or one child seem to be the norm for the new generation in China
China's estimated total fertility rate was about 1.16, according to the 2010 census, well below the replacement level of 2.1. Furthermore, there are a growing number of young couples who opt to have no children. They call themselves "child-free" rather than "childless". China's one-child policy has also led to a large gender imbalance; it is estimated that there are around 20 million more men than women of marrying age.