China will now allow couples to legally have a third child as it seeks to hold off a demographic crisis. The overwhelming fear is that China will grow old before it becomes wealthy.
The shift to the two-child from the single-child rule led to a temporary bump in the numbers of births but its effects soon wore off and total births continued to fall because many women continued to decide against starting families.
The number of working-age people in China has fallen over the past decade and the population has barely grown, adding to strains in an ageing society.
Chinese over 60, who number 264 million, accounted for 18.7% of the country’s total population in 2020, 5.44 percentage points higher than in 2010. At the same time, the working-age population fell to 63.3% of the total from 70.1% a decade ago.
Japan, Germany and many other countries face the same challenge of having fewer workers to support ageing populations. However, they can draw on counter-acting influences such as investments in technology while China is a country with labour-intensive farming and manufacturing.
China allows couples third child amid demographic crisis (apnews.com)
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