China has one of the lowest fertility rates in the world. Meanwhile its population is getting older and its workforce is shrinking. By one estimate, China’s state pension will run out by 2035. This year, in a bid to get women to have more children, cash incentives and free preschool education were written into the Chinese Communist Party's annual work report.
Rob Gifford, The Economist’s acting China editor, and Sarah Wu, our China correspondent based in Beijing, ask: why aren’t Chinese women having babies? And could paying them change that?
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