China might further relax, or even scrap, restrictions on childbirth to avoid a "low birthrate trap," an influential government think tank has said, as the country debates how to avert a demographic time bomb.
China's birth rate, one of the world's lowest, is fast becoming a worry for authorities, rather than the achievement it was considered at a time when the government feared over-population.
Beijing formally allowed all couples to have two children in October last year after decades of enforcing a strict one-child policy for the vast majority of the population.