SHANGHAI authorities are urging eligible couples to have a second baby, after years of following a one-child policy, amid concerns about a lack of young workers to support its ageing population.

Family planning officials will make home visits and offer financial advice to those wanting a second child, in a dramatic shift away from the 30-year priority of simply keeping the population down.

“We just hope more people can have a second child because for Shanghai, as a city which started family planning quite early, the process of ageing is fast,” said Zhang Meixin of the Shanghai population and family planning commission.

He said the authorities would not introduce new policies as such and stressed that the nationwide rules still stood. Officials have long feared that China cannot support a rising population — already over 1.3 billion and not expected to peak until it reaches 1.5 billion in about 2033. China's one-child policy already includes a series of exemptions — including for ethnic minorities and couples who are both only children. But in Shanghai, families will now be actively encouraged to use what was previously seen as a privilege.

The change reflects the differing needs of China's modern cities and its countryside, and growing acknowledgement by officials that birth restrictions are a blunt tool with unwanted side-effects.

Earlier this year the US-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies warned that China would have more than 438 million over-60s by 2050. Each would have just 1.6 working-age adults to support them, compared with 7.7 in 1975.

The problem is particularly acute in Shanghai. Zhang said its fertility rate was 0.88 in 2008 — far below the national average of around 1.8 — and that which is needed simply to keep the population at the same level.

Fertility rates tend to drop with economic development. China's is still above that of Britain and many European countries.

- The Guardian, London