RNS: China announced that married couples may have up to three children, from the current two-child limit, as a result of census data that showed a massive decline in births in the country.
The change was approved during a politburo meeting chaired by President Xi Jinping on Monday, reported Xinhua, the official news agency of China.
The decision in 2016 to relax China’s one-child policy and allow people to have a second child had failed to reverse the country’s falling birth rate as the high cost of education and of supporting aging parents in Chinese cities deterred many couples from starting families.
In response to this policy change, which is set to be implemented, the state news agency reported that supportive measures will be put in place, all of which will help improve the country’s population structure, meet the country’s strategy of mitigating the impact of an ageing population, and retain the country’s human resources advantage. But no specific support measures were mentioned.
China’s once-a-decade census, released earlier this month, showed that 12 million babies were born in the past year, the lowest since 1961, during the Great Famine. In addition, the census showed China’s 2020 fertility rate was 1.3 children per woman – below the replacement level of 2.1 needed for a stable population putting it on a par with ageing societies like Japan and Italy.
This raised concerns for almost all walks of life, including fear of a drop in economic demand, dwindling workforce, and difficulties managing recruitments for the Chinese Army, which is the world’s largest.
This has raised concerns about nearly all aspects of life, including fear of declining economic demand, decreased employees, and difficulties managing Chinese Army recruitment, which is the world’s largest.
The combination of a lack of affordable public childcare, rising living costs, and the grueling hour’s many people must work to survive contributes to millennials’ reluctance to have children. Not only is domestic help out of reach for many working-class Chinese, but so is affordable childcare.
Also, on Monday, China’s politburo emphasized raising the retirement age progressively but did not provide any details.
