The two-child policy is expected to mean over 30 mn more people in the labour force by 2050
Beijing : Playing down reports of a poor response to removal of the decades-old one-child policy, China said that besides generating a labour force of 30 million by 2050, the new policy could also boost stagnating growth in the world’s second-largest economy.
China’s new two-child policy could increase economic growth rate by 0.5 percentage points through reducing the dependency ratio, the National Health and Family Planning Commission (NHFPC) said.
The change in policy is expected to mean over 30 million more people in the labour force by 2050 and a decrease of two percentage points in the share of elderly Chinese people, Wang Peian, deputy head of the NHFPC, said here refutingperceptions that the two-child policy came too late to address China’s deepening demographic crisis.
Statistics from the NHFPC show the population aged between 15 to 64 in China is around 1 billion in 2015 and will reduce to 830 million by 2050.
Wang’s projections came amid reports in the official media about poor response from eligible couples to the earlier concessions announced for a second child. Only 13 per cent of 1.45 million eligible parents applied for permission to have a second child under earlier policy to permit couples from one-child families to have a second child.
About 55,850 qualified couples have applied for a second child in Beijing city till last month, which is 10 per cent of those eligible in response to last year’s relaxation of the family planning policy under which parents from one-child parents were permitted to have a second child.
