CHINA-INTERNAL: ONE CHILD POLICY
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China Business News reported on January 22, 2016, that an unnamed researcher said the National Health and Family Planning Commission could roll out a revised policy by the end of the year at the earliest to help the country cope with its greying population. The Commission had said earlier this month that it was "wasting no time" working on the revised policy.The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences said last year that the mainland should soon allow all couples to have a second child because the total fertility rate -- the average number of children that would be born to a woman across her lifetime - was only 1.4. That is far below the 2.1 rate needed to keep the population steady. (Comment: The proportion of mainlanders aged at least 60 is steadily climbing, rising from 13.3 per cent in 2010 to 15.5 per cent last year. The number of people of working age has been declining since 2011, according to official figures, triggering concerns over the possible impact on economic development. A family planning commission official said two weeks ago that the present rate was between 1.5 and 1.6. Renmin University Demographics Professor Gu Baochang told the newspaper that the mainland might need a fertility rate of 2.3, given its sex-ratio imbalance.)
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