China will allow couples to have threechildren, loosening its historic family planning policies in the face of a looming demographic crisis just weeks after reporting that its population grew at the slowest rate in decades.
The new "three-child policy"was intended to “actively address the ageing population, and maintain China's natural advantage in human resources", according to Xinhua, the state media agency. It was unclear when the policy would take effect.
Experts, the public and China's central bankhave called for the government to abolishbirth limits entirely after the census published this month showed the
population grew 5.4 per cent from 1.34bn in2010 to 1.41bn in 2o2o — the lowest rate ofincrease between censuses since the People's Republic of China began collecting data in1953.
Demographers have said rising incomes,urbanisation and the increased costs ofraising children had led to a long-termdecline in fertility rates that would be extremely difficult to reverse.In the pastfive years, China's official fertility rate has fallen sharply to 1.3 births per woman, one of the world's lowest.
The one-child policy was introduced from 1979-8o as the population approached 1bn.The cap was lifted to two children in 2o15but the change had little impact on the birthrate.
As a result of the one-child policy, many Chinese children are in a so-called 4-2-1 family structure, meaning they will have to support four grandparents and two parentson one income. The UN projected that China's old-age dependency ratio would double to more than 40 per cent by 2040, putting severe pressure on the pension system.
A rapidly ageing population will also shrinkthe labour pool, putting pressure on
economic growth.
Experts said the decision to raise the cap toallow three children would not reverse the overall trend.
"The policy might be able to slightly slow,but cannot stop, the huge decline in births.It could bring a few tens of thousands of newbirths, while in recent years there has been adrop of 6o-7o,0oo per year,"said HuangWenzheng, a demographer at the Center for China and Globalization, a Beijing-basedthink-tank.
Huang added that existing policies carried sufficient exemptions that nearly anyone who was not a government employee could already have three children - they simplydid not wish to.
The government previously said it wouldprovide more “appropriate support” forparents to help convince couples to havemore children.Peng Xizhe, professor of demography at Fudan University in Shanghai, said this would probably meanhelp with early-age care and paternity leave.
“Opening up to three children on the one hand keeps in place the concept of
population controls, while also letting people who want to have children realise that wish,” he said.
The announcement of the three-child policy was met with a swift backlash on socialmedia, despite widespread censorship of government criticism, reflecting concerns that the measures would not address theunderlying reasons why Chinese were nothaving more children.
"I recommend you first resolve thefundamental problems of child supportplus . . . the unfair treatment of women in the workplace, before asking them to have children!”read the most-liked response under the Xinhua announcement on Weibo,the microblogging platform.
"So many of us were the only child in our generation. Back then [the government] fined us. Now they want us to raise fourageing parents plus three children . . . only inyour dreams," read another reply.
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发表于 2021-6-18 22:33:49
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