Time and money for love: China brainstorms ways to boost birth rate
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[March 15, 2023]
By Farah Master
HONG KONG (Reuters) - Concerned by China’s shrinking population,
political advisors to the government have come up with more than 20
recommendations to boost birth rates, though experts say the best they
can do is to slow the population's decline.
China dug itself into a demographic hole largely through its one-child
policy imposed between 1980 and 2015. Authorities raised the limit to
three in 2021, but even during the stay at home COVID times couples have
been reluctant to have babies.
Young people cite high childcare and education costs, low incomes, a
feeble social safety net and gender inequalities, as discouraging
factors.
The proposals to boost the birth rate, made at the annual meeting of
China's People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) this month,
range from subsidies for families raising their first child, rather than
just the second and third, to expanding free public education and
improving access to fertility treatments.
Experts took the sheer number of proposals as a positive sign that China
was treating its ageing and declining demographics with urgency, after
data showed the population shrinking for the first time in six decades
last year.
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"You cannot change the declining trend," said Xiujian Peng, senior
research fellow at the Centre of Policy Studies at Victoria University
in Australia. "But without any fertility encouragement policy then
fertility will decline even further."
A motion by CPPCC member Jiang Shengnan that young people work only
eight hours per day so they have time to "fall in love, get married and
have children," was critical to ensure women are not overworked, Peng
said.
Giving incentives to have a first child could encourage couples to have
at least one child, she said. Many provinces currently only subsidize
second and third children.
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![](../images/031523PIX/health85.jpg)
A person holds a girl as a boy drives a
toy car at a shopping mall in Shanghai, China June 1, 2021. REUTERS/Aly
Song
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2019/Sep/05/images/ads/current/stclara_lda_SPONSOR_090519.png) To help alleviate the pressure on
young families, the National Health Commission (NHC) issued draft
rules on Wednesday that would allow qualified individuals to run day
care operations for a maximum of five children up to three-years
old.
China's birth rate last year fell to 6.77 births per 1,000 people,
from 7.52 births in 2021, the lowest on record.
Demographers warn China will get old before it gets rich, as its
workforce shrinks and indebted local governments spend more on their
elderly population.
Experts also praised a proposal to scrap all family planning
measures, including the three children limit and the requirement for
women to be legally married to register their children.
Arjan Gjonca, associate professor at London School of Economics,
said financial incentives were not enough and policies focusing on
gender equality and better employment rights for women would be
likely to have more impact.
CPPCC proposals such as maternity leave paid by the government
rather than the employer would help reduce discrimination against
women, while increasing paternity leave removes a barrier for
fathers in taking more parenting responsibilities, experts said.
Demographer Yi Fuxian remains sceptical whether any measures would
have a significant impact by themselves, saying China needed a
"paradigm revolution of its entire economy, society, politics and
diplomacy to boost fertility."
(Reporting by Farah Master, additional reporting by Albee Zhang;
Editing by Marius Zaharia and Simon Cameron-Moore)
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