Second child not right population recipe

Shanghai's announcement on encouraging couples who have no siblings to have a second child is sending a wrong signal.

By claiming the city is suffering from an increasingly aging population and a possible shortage of workforce 40 years from now, these officials seem to talk as if Shanghai were an independent "republic".

This, of course, has no basis. If you count the 6.4 million people, mostly young, residing and working in Shanghai without a local hukou, or permanent residence permit, Shanghai's graying threat would not look that gloomy. These people actually make up a third of the city's 19 million.