Please have more babies. That's China's message to couples after decades of limiting most families to just one child. Why the turnaround? The reason for this is that birth rates have now fallen for seven years in a row, leading to a population decline in the last two years. Even before the historic overall decline, the working-age population had been shrinking for years, and estimates suggest that by 2034, 30% of the population will be 60 or older. This threatens economic growth that has been supported in part by a huge labor supply — not to mention that there may not be enough able-bodied people to care for all those seniors.
China has already lost its status as the world's most populous country to India in 2023, and the result is that China's economy may struggle to overtake the US in size, especially as the US population is expected to continue to grow.
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