IMF: More than 2-baby policy needed

A more relaxed population policy is unlikely to boost the nation's birthrate, while other policies, such as encouraging women and seniors to work, are critical to curb the problems of an aging society, according to the International Monetary Fund.

The comment came as the Chinese government allowed all couples to have two children, after long-standing pressure that the restrictive population policy, if maintained, would damage China's population structure, undermine its potential GDP growth and cripple the pension system.

"The pronatalist policies seem to have only modest effects on the number of births. For example, in Germany, policies to encourage births in the 1970s had only short-lived effects, and the introduction of parental allowances did not have a noticeable impact on the fertility rate, which remained at 1.35 (births per woman) over the past decade," Victor Gaspar, an economist at the IMF, said when the study was released on Friday.