We are now in the Year of the Dragon. Many people are having babies during this year. They hope their babies will take on the traits associated with dragons - ambitious, powerful, and successful.
In the year 2000 - the last year of the dragon - 36 million babies were born. This is double the amount of babies born in 1999 and 2001.
I read a fascinating article in China Daily about the consequences of a surge in births.
In the article The Guangdong Provincial Population and Family Planning Commission's director Zhang Feng says the boom of recent years will produce 4.6 million bachelors by 2020 and result in a severe sex-ratio imbalance.
This year it will be hard to get a bed in a hospital for the birth because there are more women giving birth than beds available.
Prices will go up on everything from diapers to food to nannies and childcare.
All of these children will start going to school at the same time which means classes could have more than 130 children per class.
Eventually when these children are older there will be a shortage of jobs because everyone will be entering the work place at the same time.
It's going to take children who are ambitious and powerful to succeed with all these challenges and competition - seems like their parents are stacking the odds against them.
This is the link to the article if you want to read more: http://usa.chinadaily.com.cn/epaper/2012-02/01/content_14518351.htm
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