Demographics - China switches to a 3-child policy

Important news that China is looking to encourage couples to have more children, with a relaxation of the current two-child policy in favour of a three-child policy.

Whilst it will offer families choice, particularly in rural areas - although to be fair, I suspect that there's a already fairly lax monitoring in many regions - it's unlikely to tackle China's structural demographic problems: an ageing population and a shrinking workforce.

According to recent data, 12 million babies were born in China during 2020, an 18 percent decline on the 14.6 millon births recorded in 2019. The country's fertility rate now stands at 1.3 children per mother, below the 2.1 threshold necessary for a stable population.

In this video interview, Gilliam Collinsworth Hamilton from GaveKal assesses the various policy levers that the authorities can pull to stop the Chinese nation getting smaller