5 January  2008

China continues to enjoy remarkable economic expansion. China’s gross domestic product is growing by over eleven percent a year. The country is on track to surpass Germany and become the world’s third-largest economy sometime in 2008.

Many commentators have addressed the challenges facing China in its effort to continue the fast pace of growth -- the strain of maintaining political authoritarianism while opening up to free markets, the need to acquire energy to fuel all those new factories, the environmental consequences of poorly regulated industrialization. Each has been recognized as a potential threat to China’s economy and stability.

But what about the consequences of China’s coercive population program? In 1979, the Communist regime instituted a one-child policy to restrict the number of Chinese births. As a result, China’s overall population is aging.

Will a graying workforce be able to maintain the dynamism of China’s economy? What are the long-term consequences for China’s economy and society of its one-child rule?