According to a recent census, China might 'get old before it gets rich' because the one child policy, a population control enforced in the 1970s that became the hallmark of Chinese social policy, led to a significant fall of the number of working-age labor available in China. Of all ethnically 'Han' Chinese, only 30-40% are allowed to have two or more children. The requirements? 1. If the parent was a single child in an urban setting, or 2. If the first child was a girl in a rural setting. The result? A net loss of 400 million births over the span of 40 years.
However, this all is about to change. China is considering a gradual increase in its child limit policy, and for a very simple reason. Analysts predict that if current trends were to continue, 20% of China's entire population will be 60 or older by 2030. This poses a very problematic demographics issue, in that double the proportion of elderly people will occupy China without a strong youth band. Yet an additional problem is that if China becomes too lenient on its policies, its work over the past decades will be revoked. The balance will be hard fought. As
this article from Seeking Alpha says, China should not consider relaxing its one child policy in the short term nor the long term, but somewhere in between.
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