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China’s One Child Policy Shows Its Age

It’s official.  In one very specific instance the Chinese are relaxing their one-child policy.  It seems in the town of Shanghai the policy has been even more effective than it has in the rest of the country.  With a dirth of children, the average age of the city is soaring, with over 20% of the population over 60.  This situation creates incredible issues for the area, including a drain on social services and a labor shortage.

To combat this, the UPI reports that China is allowing couples in which each parent is an only child (courtesy of the one child policy in place for almost 30 years) to have a second child.  In order to get the word out, government workers are going door-to-door and handing out leaflets.  It would seem that the government is very interested in heralding this program in order to create a rash of births in as short a time as possible.  Which seems like a good idea because by their own analysis the population of the city will move from 22% of the population over 60 today to 34% of the population over 60 in 2020.  That’s 10 short years from now.

So even if this new relaxation of the law has it’s desired affect, the children that are born of it will only be 8 or 9 when Shanghai reaches the point of a full 1/3 of its population being over 60.  Unless child labor has made quite a comeback, Shanghai is still in for a tough road for another decade after 2020 as its current population gets even older.