End of China's one-child policy a long-term plus for BlackmoresChina to end one-child policy
China's decision to abolish its controversial "one-child" policy will take years to work its way through the economy, and will not solve the problem of its ageing population, experts say.
But they say the decision may have short-term benefits for Australia's economy. 
China's ruling Communist Party made a historical decision to abandon its one-child-per-couple policy and allow couples to have two children instead.
The landmark ruling, which overturns a plan introduced in the late 1970s, reflects the party's concern about a demographic "time-bomb", after China's working age population fell for the first time in decades in 2012.
China's fertility rate is just 1.5 children per couple, down from six per couple in the 1950s, while its life expectancy is roughly 75 today, up from less than 40 years in 1949. 
Those two factors have contributed to a shrinking workforce and rapidly ageing population, and fears of negative consequences for growth.
But China experts say the decision to allow Chinese couples to have two children may create its own problems.
"If you've got an ageing problem now - and it is going to get worse - then having more children doesn't seem like a sensible way to deal with it," Dr Jane Golley of Australian National University said.
"What gave China a surging working-age population all those decades ago was the fertility rate coming down, with a subsequent reduction in youth dependency and a boost in the proportion of workers in the population.
"But the price they're paying for that now is their ageing population. I don't think the right way to tackle that problem would be to create another youth dependency problem. Why not target the quality and productivity of the workforce, with education and training?" 
Vic Edwards, a Visiting Fellow in Banking and Finance at the UNSW Business School, said Australia's economy may benefit in the short-term from the decision to relax the one-child policy.
It will increase demand for Australia's pharmaceutical goods, milk powder, eggs, and meat, which it can sell under the China-Australia free trade agreement, he said.
But the policy will not see a big increase in China's population because Chinese couples already find it expensive to raise one child, he said.
Lu Bei, a research fellow at UNSW's ARC Centre of Excellence in Population Ageing Research, said China's government had to do something about its ageing population because its pension and health budgets will be under huge pressure in two decades.
But the decision to abolish the one-child policy would only delay the fiscal problem, rather than fix it, she said.
She also said it was impossible to estimate how the policy change would affect China's GDP per person.
"If it has an impact it will take at least three to five years to find out. It all depends on whether people want to have a second child or not," she said.
"It's hard to have a definite projection of a 'boom' in babies within the next three years because couples' behaviour is really not that sensitive to policy any more."
Mr Edwards says around 25 per cent to 30 per cent of Chinese couples may not want to have a second child because they have become accustomed to a higher standard of living with only one child.
He predicted the new two-child policy would be relaxed in time.
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