Having more children is not simply a matter of the state allowing it. It requires a psychological change in the populace. First, one must ask why birth rates have been declining across the industrialized world. Three primary reasons:
-Fewer children are needed because chance of survival and life expectancy are much greater than previously
-Parents emphasize quality (education) over quantity to ensure the greatest success for their children, and it's expensive
-Parents are focused on their own self-actualization rather than sacrificing for the chance of their children's self-actualization
China is rapidly developing, and the more developed parts of China aren't even getting to the one child, let alone two:
China's one-child policy: Ladies from Shanghai | The Economist
"Under the current policy, adults who were only children themselves are permitted to have two children. According to
research by Stuart Basten of Oxford University*, that provision applies to 70% of the city’s couples. In other words, the weight of the one-child policy bears down relatively lightly on Shanghai. Even so, Shanghainese couples have extremely low fertility. The city’s total fertility rate—the number of children a woman can expect to have during her lifetime—was a mere 0.64 in 2002-03 (one of the lowest rates ever recorded in peacetime) before rising slightly to a still-low 0.89 in 2007. The Shanghainese are not having larger families even though they are allowed to."
This may marginally improve China's fertility rate, but I would be curious to see Citi's reasoning for their likely and aggressive projections. Most developed countries have failed to turn the tide of declining fertility rates, so it remains an open question as to why China will be so much more successful. If it is, we will be able to study the methods and apply them elsewhere, but so far, the strategy to increase fertility rates for developed countries is a mystery.
