About 3 million, or 21 percent, of Shanghai’s nearly 13.7 million registered residents are now age 60 or older, the statement said, and providing for them poses a huge challenge for the city.
Future labor shortages and funding problems could be helped by boosting the young population of Shanghai, it said.
Xie Lingli, the commission’s director, was quoted as saying authorities are going door to door to try to encourage couples to have a second child - if both grew up as only children.
China’s family planning policy was designed to control the country’s exploding population and ensure better education and healthcare.
Though commonly known as the one-child policy because it limits most couples to having just one, there are numerous exceptions and loopholes, some of them put into practice because of widespread opposition to the limits.
Two or more children are allowed for many ethnic minorities, rural families, and couples in which both parents were only children. In some cases, divorced parents may also have a second child with a new spouse, and people with physical disabilities who have trouble earning an income can also have more than one child.
Critics say the policy has led to forced abortions and sterilizations as local authorities pursue birth quotas set by Beijing, plus a dangerously imbalanced sex ratio as families abort girls out of a traditional preference for male heirs.
