Sharp Decline in Births Looms in China
By Patrick Goodenough
CNSNews.com International Editor
March 12, 2008

(CNSNews.com) - The number of births in China as well as the number of women of reproductive age in that country will begin to drop "precipitously" in the years after 2011, a leading expert on China's controversial "one-child" policy predicted Wednesday.

Meanwhile, the number of Chinese people aged 60 and over will rise from more than 140 million today to 200 million by 2015, said Prof. Wang Feng, who teaches sociology and demography and conducts research on China at the University of California, Irvine.

A fast-aging population and associated decline in the annual supply of new labor will have far-reaching consequences in a society where elderly parents have traditionally relied on their children for support, demographers and economists have warned. the rest image