China is the world’s most populous country, with one point three thousand million people. It is also dealing with economic problems linked to population. The government has a firm family planning policy that limits parents to having only one child. As a result, China has one of the lowest population growth rates in the developing world – just six tenths of one percent a year. The population is expected to increase to one point five thousand million people in twenty-five years and then begin to decrease.
The Chinese government said its one-child policy has led to fast economic growth. Yet, some people believe it has created a troubled economic future. Wang Feng is an expert on Chinese population issues at the University of California-Irvine in the United States. He says fewer people will be entering the Chinese workforce in coming years. But, more people over age sixty-five will be demanding retirement payments from the government. So he says a smaller workforce could have bad effects on the economy.
Experts believe China’s one-child policy has affected the country in other ways. Chinese society values sons over daughters. Some parents choose to end a pregnancy if the fetus is a girl. So more boys than girls are born in China. As a result, experts say about forty million Chinese men will not be able to find women to marry within the next fifteen years. Experts say this could lead to kidnappings and more trafficking of woman and girls.
Almost all of the world’s population growth is expected to take place in cities in developing countries. By the year twenty thirty, more than sixty percent of the world’s population will be living in cities. Within the next ten years, experts say there will be twenty-five “mega-cities” of more than ten million people each.
Environmental experts worry about social pressures and poor living conditions in mega-cities. These huge cities generally lack effective education, health care and transportation systems. In addition, as mega-cities spread, they take over surrounding agricultural land.
