China has recently redoubled its efforts to boost its population, using both carrot and stick. Some Chinese provinces are offering tax benefits, housing and education subsidies, and longer paternity and maternity leave to lift birth rates, according to a report in The New York Times . In some other provinces, abortion clinics face new restrictions, and it is becoming more difficult for women to access them. Chinese courts are joining the effort by trying to dissuade couples from divorcing, and enforcing cooling-off periods, as The Economist reports . China had introduced its one-child policy in 1979, but relaxed it in two stages in 2013 and 2016. In recent years, the government has become worried that the country’s declining working-age population will not be able to adequately support economic growth or finance the pensions of its older demographic. China’s birth rate fell to 17.2 million in 2017 from 18.5 million in 2016, according to a Straits Times report .…