China is rushing to fix a new population problem

Four decades after declaring a one-child policy China has a new population problem: it looks all but set to shrink.

The country saw plummeting birth rates for a second straight year in 2018 and lawmakers are now scrambling to find a fix.

At this year's annual National People's Congress, delegates from across China urged leaders to take radical steps to "liberate fertility."

People in China are living longer lives, meaning its population is aging while young couples aren't having kids. Policymakers there are worried that's not a good mix for the economy.

Recent suggestions by delegates included improving health care, offering tax breaks and providing more free public education.

Or a more radical solution: having the government butt out of family planning altogether, overturning a key tenet of Chinese communist party thinking.

Think tanks say China's population will peak at 1.4 billion in ten years' time, then begin an unstoppable decline which could reduce the workforce by as much as 200 million by 2050.