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Expert: China's one-child policy needs to be adjusted

(chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2009-11-26 15:29

A distinguished scholar said China should encourage its people to have more than one child in the future, the Economic Information Daily reported Thursday.

Hu Angang, the director of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences' National Conditions Research Institute, said China's one-child policy should change to better fit the developing national conditions. Population growth is no longer the main source of pressure on China's resources and environment, he said.

"China meets two challenges in population since 2000: the first one is low-birth rate, and the second is aging society. The United Nation Population Division predicts that China's 60-year old and above will make up 16.7 percent of its overall population as of 2020, while the proportion will blow to 31.1 percent by 2050, far above the then global average 21.9 percent," Hu said.

"China should maintain the stable labor population and total population size and in the mean time raise the life expectancy, improve average years of schooling and raise the Human Develop Index to give people better lives," he added.