China’s birthrate remains stubbornly low and men greatly outnumber women, creating a crisis that could hinder economic growth for decades to come. They’ve told couples over the last three years that it’s their patriotic duty to have two babies. They’ve tried to make it more difficult to get an abortion or a divorce but nothing seems to be working.

Now, an economics professor at Fudan University in Shanghai has come up with another way to coax women to have more children. His solution: Allow women to have multiple husbands, and they will have multiple babies. His rationale is that “If two men are willing to marry the same wife and the woman is willing, too, what reason does society have to stop them sharing a wife?”

Source: Washington Post