Recently the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China announced the end of the country's one-child policy, which has been mandatory (though with some exceptions for minority groups) since 1980.

The statement issued by official press agency Xinhua read, "China will allow all couples to have two children ... the change of policy is intended to balance population development and address the challenge of an ageing population".

Although this decision was widely praised in Western media it should not be construed, in any way, as a concession by the Communist Party in the virtues of personal liberalism, in this case the fundamental and intimate right of individuals to start and grow their own family ties.

Rather, the slight easing of this pernicious restraint over the reproductive lives of Chinese people is based on a cold, calculating assessment of the economic and social consequences of one of the most venal expressions of state control in living memory.

Partly as a consequence of the one-child policy it is widely anticipated that China will experience accelerating population ageing, with some demographers quipping that the country, presently home to about 1.4 billion people, will grow old before it gets rich (in per capita terms).

During the "Great Leap Forward" of forced agricultural collectivisation and industrialisation, from the late 1950s to early 1960s, the Chinese total fertility rate stood at around 5.7 births each woman, and reached subsequent highs of about 6.2 during the mid-1960s.

By the time the one-child policy was being enforced by Deng Xiaoping, estimates of the total fertility rate in China had fallen to about 2.8 births each woman, which were consistent with regional and global trends.

With the one-child policy motivated by the spurious fear that population growth will overwhelm available resources, Chinese fertility rates have been driven down even further to now range between 1.2 and 1.6 births each woman, depending on which source is relied upon.

The effects of such change are long lasting and transformative in a demographic sense with estimates suggesting the policy, brutally enforced by coerced sterilisations and forced abortions, tragically prevented between 200 and 400 million unique individuals being born.

It is often said that "demography is destiny" and the anti-natalist stance of the Chinese government has precipitated the almost sure-fire result of a rapidly ageing population stock which cannot be economically or fiscally sustained by a declining working-age populace.

By 2020 it has been estimated that the numbers of the elderly in China will increase by 60 per cent whereas the working-age population will fall by about 35 per cent.

Looking a little farther out into the future, the United Nations has previously forecast that by 2050 one-third of the Chinese population will be over 60 years of age, with a little more than half of the population of working age.

For comparison, the latest Intergenerational Report forecasts about 23 per cent of the Australian population will be over 65 years of age about mid-century, whereas 60 per cent of our total population will be aged between 15 and 64 years.

The exercise in demographic misanthropy over a 35-year period is also contributing to a disfigurement of China's population composition, of a character unlike that seen anywhere else in the world.

Even though advanced economies with a greater preserve for civic and personal freedoms are also experiencing declining fertility rates below the replacement threshold level of 2.1 births each woman, they are unlikely to see a generational population distribution as skewed as that emerging in China.

In particular there is growing reference to the "4-2-1"phenomenon of a typical extended family consisting of four grandparents, two parents, and the one child who is pampered, as if a "Little Emperor/Empress", but equally pressured to perform well in school and attain a high-paying job to support ageing relatives.

The one-child policy combined with deeply ingrained patriarchal norms contributed to horrifying femicides of untold numbers of very young girls, leading in turn to a peculiarly skewed gender imbalance in Chinese society.

Although estimates of the skewness in gender do vary, it is generally accepted that there are about 117 males for every 100 females in China with worries that up to 30 million men will never find a female partner to marry, should they be thus inclined.

Arguably the most ironic element of this draconian population policy which, incidentally, still remains largely in place given the reluctance of the Chinese government to allow its own people to freely reproduce, is that fertility rate reductions would likely to have come anyhow.

The experience of a falling fertility rate within its freer domicile, Hong Kong, aptly shows that educational attainment and income growth leads many families to want to have fewer children of their own accord but, then, invest more resources into each child than ever before.

Over the last few years Australian governments have placed very great stock on the realisation of a so-called "Asian Century", arguing we should reorient the weight of our economic ties with East Asia in particular.

But China's ageing population is likely to contribute to more subdued output growth and cost competitiveness pressures, including as the smaller pool of working-age people seek out wage premiums, so Chinese prosperity will not necessarily be limitless.

In fact, the future growth of the Chinese economy will be very heavily constrained by the heavy-handedness of its demographic central planners.

Perhaps the Communist Party may have sealed its own fate in this case, since it will find itself unable to maintain the economic growth rates and, incidentally, the revenue base to fund the state-sector patronages necessary for ongoing political support as the population ages.

However, as the historical record and contemporary experience abundantly illustrates, there is no better promoter of prosperity, and not to mention stabilising population growth, than greater economic freedom itself.

It is in this regard that China could avert the dire economic consequences of its self-induced demographic crunch as best it can, with an encouragement of much greater foreign investment and migration key among the policy changes it should make.

If the East Asian giant could further liberalise its economy to inject new capital and alleviate labour shortages into the future, then both the peoples of China and Australia would stand to benefit immensely.

Mikayla Novak is a senior researcher with the Institute of Public Affairs (www.ipa.org.au).

Twitter: @NovakMikayla"