Rapid demographic aging threatens pensions, with some institutes forecasting deficits of 18 trillion yuan ($2.86 trillion), and some predicting 8 trillion yuan ($1.27 trillion).

"Although it is hard to say which one is accurate, it can be affirmed that China will become a deeply aging society in 2020," said Yang Yansui, Director of the Research Center of Employment and Social Security at Tsinghua University.

Delay retirement or permit second births?

It will be a common practice in dealing with population crises to delay retirement age or adjust one-child family planning.

"It makes little sense to only delay retirement age, because the current life expectancy of the Chinese people is seven or eight years shorter than that in developed countries," said Yuan Xin, adding that "It will need 10 to 20 years of transition period for China to realize the retirement age of 65."

To resolve aging problem, "China should abandon or roll back the one-child policy," said Gu Baochang.

A pilot program exempting families from one-child policy in some places shows actual birth rates even lower than the national average. "Therefore, even permitting second births will not lead to a rise in birth rates," said Gu.

"China hasn't got much time left, since the youngest women born in 1970s are 33 years old, and the number of those born after 1980 willing to have a child are shrinking," Gu said.

Shanghai family planning officials conducted a survey of both local and immigrants of more than 6 months in Shanghai in 2009. The sample survey showed that residents between ages 20 and 45 declining to have a child accounted for 7.93 percent, a rise of 3.37 percent compared with that of 2003. 

The number of women declining to have a child is rising in Beijing too, said Ma Xiaohong, a professor at the Beijing Administrative College.

The census in 2010 also showed that the number of fertile women between 20 to 34 years old will drop sharply after 2015.

"The fact that the total fertility in China has dropped to 1.6 on the basis of 2010 census indicated that each generation will have less population than their elder generation since then, said Guo Zhigang, a professor at the Department of Sociology under Peking University. Guo suggests raising birth rate to 1.94 or above 2.0 per woman.

"The population control policy is a strategic one for a county. In the short term, it is not as urgent a policy as one in an emergency like disease of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome. If there is no policy adjustment in the long term, however, there will be no opportunity when problems do occur," Guo said.

(Source: The 21st Century Business Herald)