SHANGHAI, Sept. 20 (UPI) -- A family planning official in Shanghai says young people should start having more children to aid the city's aging population.
The Sunday Times of London said the recent comments by Shanghai family planning official Xie Lingli regarding the advanced age of the Shanghai population may be a sign the government is reconsidering the current one-child policy applied to most Chinese couples.
"In the past we stressed birth control, not the chance to have a second child. Not many people know these exceptions to the regulations so we were just reminding them," Xie said of his comments.
More than a third of the population of Shanghai is expected to be at least 60 years old by 2020. All of China is expected to have more than 330 million people age 60 or over by the middle of the century, The Sunday Times reported.
"China accounted for 40 percent of the world's population in the Qianlong period of the Qing dynasty, but today it accounts for 20 percent," social scientist Wang Xinhai said, referring to the 1700s period.
"So China should encourage people to have even three children," he added..
