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One-child policy becomes controversial topic
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2005-12-29 20:54
"With a birth rate drop, China's labor force may stabilize at its height in
2013 and then gradually drop year by year", said CaiFang, head of the Population
and Labor Economy Institute under the Chinese Academy of Social Science (CASS).
Cai said China's abundant labor force once was regarded a "big bonus" to the
country's high-speed economic growth, with its contribution to the per capita
gross domestic product (GDP) exceeding 25 percent in the past two decades.
"But now the bonus is decreasing," said Cai, adding that the contribution of
population to China's GDP will also be reduced as the labor force structure
changed.
Proper readjustment is necessary
Jan. 6, 2005 was marked in China as the "1.3 billion populationday", when its
1.3 billionth citizen was born.
China's one-child policy has successfully reined in its population growth and
helped prevent 300 million births -- about the size of the U.S. population --
postponing the arrival of 1.3 billion population by four years.
However, Cai said, it is necessary for China to make a proper readjustment of
its current population policy when a reasonable population structure becomes
more important than the pressure brought by population growth.
Quite a number proposals to solve population problems were delivered at the
forum such as raising the quality of China's labor force to make up the decrease
in the quantity of labor force,and postponing the age of retirement.
But most experts focused their attention on whether China should relax its
strict family planning policy, changing the current policy of
one-child-for-per-couple to the policy of two-children-for-per-couple.
Professor Zeng Yi from the China Economic Study Center of the Beijing
University proposed a two-children policy in future at the forum.
Zeng suggested that women should be allowed to have their second babies at an
age between 32 and 34.
According to Zeng, his proposal may help slow down China's pace into an aging
society and postpone the arrival of a population peak of 1.48 billion people to
the year 2038.
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