A Chinese professor has called on the government to pay parents 1 million yuan (US $ 156,000) for every newborn baby, Reuters reported.

China's population grew at the slowest pace from 2010 to 2020, as the latest census showed, raising fears that the country's shrinking workforce will not be able to feed an increasingly elderly population.

Liang Jianzhang, Research Professor of Applied Economics at the Guanghua School of Management, Peking University, believes that raising the birth rate from the current 1.3 to 2.1 will cost 10% of China's GDP. 

According to him, this amounts to 1 million yuan per child, and the funds can be allocated in the form of cash, tax breaks, or housing subsidies. The costs will be offset by future contributions to the economy, Liang said.