China's two-child policy 'to add 30m workers by 2050'

BEIJING

China expects tens of millions more people to join the country's labor force by 2050 after its announcement to abandon a one-child policy, an official said Tuesday.

Wang Pei’an, spokesman for the National Health and Family Planning Commission, said during a press conference Tuesday in Beijing that the two-child policy would help stabilize economic growth and add around 30 million workers aged between 15 and 59 by 2050 to the country's economy.

His remarks came two weeks after the ruling Communist Party announced that it would abandon the one-child policy and allow couples to have two children.

The new policy is also expected to contribute 0.5% to the country's growth rate, Wang added.

China introduced the one-child policy in the late 1970s to rein in population growth in an effort to overhaul the economy by limiting most urban couples to one child and most rural couples to two.

It allowed the birth of a second child if the first child was a girl.