Four reasons China is letting people have as many children as they want
Beijing — China’s shift towards ending limits on the number of children a family can have is a step towards addressing fundamental weaknesses in the world’s second-largest economy. If China morphs from being the engine for global growth to a society with a shrinking workforce, lower consumption and higher costs for elderly care, then that will be felt around the world. Concern that the global economy is entering a period of permanently slower growth due to ageing in major economies will look more like reality when China is driving the trend. These four charts show why, after roughly four decades, policy makers are finally moving to scrap population policies that spurred countless abortions, skewed the sex ratio to men, and left the nation with a shrinking workforce. Stubborn birth rates History shows that increased wealth and higher levels of education as economies develop make it almost impossible to prevent birth rates from falling — regardless of government policies. Singapore’s ...
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