Living longer will alter the way we work

The Chinese government, it seems, has finally woken up and smelt the coffee. The notorious one-child policy, in force and rigorously enforced since 1979, is to be replaced by a two-child policy.

Officials will no longer snoop around homes checking for signs of the patter of tiny feet. Children will no longer be treated as outcasts by public officials simply by virtue of being born the second child.

The move is not dictated by concerns about personal rights. Rather, the country’s rulers have begun to fret about the rapid graying of the country’s population — the number of people in the workforce actually fell last year, raising fears that China will grow old before it has had time to get rich.