The Shanghai Municipal Population and Family Planning Commission has estimated that the number of babies born in the city will rise 22 percent this year to 220,000, local officials said at a press conference Tuesday.

The city's current baby boom, which started in 2007, is expected to last until 2017, authorities said.

The rise in births is a direct result of the last baby boom in the city, which occurred in the 1980s, said Huang Hong, the commission's director. "The baby boomers born in 1980s are now at the age when they themselves are having babies," Huang said.

In addition, many couples from this generation are allowed to have a second child under the one-child policy in Shanghai because both spouses are the only child in their family, Huang said. In 2011, more than 10,000 local couples applied to have a second child.

"The births of second children also helped push up the number of new-born babies in the city, though they only accounted for 8 percent of the total number of births in 2011," Huang added.

The commission encourages couples who meet the one-child policy's criteria to have a second child, but it doesn't offer them any incentives to do so.

When asked whether the one-child policy will change in Shanghai in the near future, Huang said that the policy is decided at the national level. "Although Shanghai is experiencing an aging problem now that the city's senior citizen population has reached 25 percent of the total population, we will continue to follow the one-child policy," she said.

The city's baby boom has also been driven by the growing population of people from other regions in China who settle in Shanghai. In the first three quarters of this year, there were 70,000 births by people who hold a residential permit in the city, an increase of 23 percent over the same period last year.

Baby booms typically last for about 10 years, said Zhou Haiwang, the deputy director of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences' Institute of Demography and Development Studies.

"Another reason why so many babies were born this year is because it is the Year of Dragon, which is an auspicious sign in the Chinese horoscope," Zhou told the Global Times.

However, children born during baby booms will encounter more problems as they grow up, Zhou said. They will probably face fiercer competition getting into universities and finding jobs. They may even have to pay higher prices when they buy homes in the city.

The government will also face greater pressure providing public services for another wave of population growth, as they have to increase the number of hospitals, schools and other public facilities.