BEIJING — Family planning officials in Shanghai are making home visits and slipping leaflets under doorways to encourage certain residents to have a second child in a bid to lessen the burden of the city’s growing senior population.
A statement about the new campaign posted Thursday on the website of the Shanghai Population and Family Planning Commission was quick to emphasize that it didn’t signal any change in China’s one-child rule and was only an attempt to let people know about the policy’s many exceptions.
About 3 million, or 21 percent, of Shanghai’s nearly 13.7 million registered residents are now aged 60 or older, the statement said, and providing for them poses a huge challenge for the city.
Future labor shortages and social security funding problems could be helped by boosting the young population of Shanghai, it said. Critics of the one-child policy say it has led to forced abortions and sterilizations.
