Political advisers to the government have proposed more than 20 ideas to increase birth rates in response to concerns over China’s declining population, however experts say the best they can hope to achieve is a slowing of the population decrease.
China’s one-child policy, which was in place between 1980 and 2015, contributed significantly to the country’s demographic crisis. Officials increased the cap to three in 2021, but even during the COVID stay-at-home era, couples resisted having children.
High childcare and education costs, poor salaries, a frail social safety net, and gender inequities are cited by young people as deterrents.
At the People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) of China’s annual meeting this month, a number of proposals were made to increase the birth rate, including expanding free public education, increasing access to fertility treatments, and providing subsidies for families raising their first child rather than just the second or third.
Once statistics revealed that China’s population was shrinking for the first time in six decades last year, experts saw the sheer volume of recommendations as an indication that the country was confronting its ageing and deteriorating demographics with urgency.
“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.
The National Health Commission (NHC) released proposed regulations on Wednesday that would permit qualified people to operate daycare facilities for up to five children under the age of three, easing the burden on young families.
The lowest birth rate ever recorded in China was 6.77 births per 1,000 people in 2017, down from 7.52 births in 2021.
Because of a declining labour force and increased spending on the elderly by insolvent local governments, demographers predict that China will become rich before it becomes young.
A suggestion to eliminate all family planning restrictions, such as the three-child cap and the necessity that women be legally married in order to register their children, was also well received by experts.
Financial incentives are insufficient, according to Arjan Gjonca, an associate professor at the London School of Economics, and policies that prioritise gender equality and greater employment opportunities for women are more likely to have a significant influence.
Experts added that expanding paternity leave removes a barrier for fathers to taking on additional parental obligations while CPPCC suggestions like maternity leave paid by the government rather than the employer would help reduce discrimination against women.
Demographer Yi Fuxian remains sceptical about 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.”
