China's worker population mayrise to 30 millionby 2050 due to scrapping of the country's controversial one child policy and allowing couples to have a second child, a senior Chinese official said today.
About 90 million couples might each have two children, which could contribute to population growth, especially of newborns, Li Bin, heads of the National Health and Family Planning Commission, told reporters on the sidelines of national legislature annual session.
Li said China will continue the family-planning policy to achieve a delicate balance between population, environment and sustained development.
China officially junked its controversial one child policy late last year, allowing couples to have a second child amid deepening demographic crisis of shrinking workforce and ageing population in the world's second largest economy.
Earlier, reports said the relaxation of the policy has not enthused many people to have second child due to heavy costs in bringing up a second child.
Li said the Chinese population reached 1.375 billion in 2015, with a peak at about 1.45 billion expected sometime before 2050, when the total population is estimated to fall from the peak to 1.38 billion.
Li said the ratio of old-age people to the whole population would somehow decrease by 2050, without elaborating on how much the decrease might be, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.
Since the late 1970s the Chinese government had advocated for one couple to have one child.
The United Nations has predicted that people over age 65 will account for 18 per cent of China's population by 2030, double the number in 2011 which will have a negative bearing on China's labour availability.
By 2050, China is expected to have nearly 500 million people over 60, exceeding the population of the US.
The ageing population has brought greater demand for elderly care services.
According to a report published by Price waterhouse Coopers in December last year, Chinese people will spend over USD 1.54 trillion from 2016 to 2020 on elderly care, an increase of 17 per cent per year.
