Families should make their planning

The National Health Commission has said the family planning policy should not be completely scrapped immediately. Instead, we should seriously consider a population policy to increase China's low fertility rate.

Thanks to four decades of reform and opening-up, China has stepped into a new era characterized by sustainable yet relatively high economic growth and an aging society and low fertility rate. In the future, China's demographic problem will not be a booming population, but a shrinking population due to the low fertility rate, aging population and unbalanced population structure.

Owing to the declining 1-to-14-year-old population, the population of working age people will sharply decline. The ratio of 1-to-14-year-olds to the total population dropped from 33 percent in 1982 to 22 percent in 1990, sliding further to 18 percent in 2000 and 16.6 percent in 2010.