China's population decline need not be a crisis

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The worry is the spectre of what the Chinese call the 1-2- 4 problem - one person having to support two parents and four grandparents - and the effect on economic development.

There could be environmental dividends, too, as a smaller population will be less taxing on the country's water, land and other natural resources.

China has begun to address this by emphasising high-quality growth, moving away from labour-intensive industries towards more high-tech and capital-intensive industries that reduce reliance on huge numbers of semi-skilled and unskilled workers.

Development experts have called for China to raise the retirement age - 60 for men and 55 for women - as an immediate solution to increase the pool of working people and also reduce pressure on the increasingly strained pension system. This is an unpopular move as younger Chinese worry about competition from older colleagues, and older Chinese will chafe at a delayed access to their pensions.

that the demographic change can be an opportunity for the Chinese government to invest in Chinese women who, she said, are the most undervalued assets of the country.

It would also help China to achieve its climate change goal of reaching carbon neutrality by 2060.