Last Updated on May 31, 2021 at 4:46 pm
In a major policy shift, China has lifted the cap on two-child policy in the Communist country and couples may now have upto three children.
The Chinese regime announced the shift in policy after recent data showed a dramatic decline in births in the world’s most populous country.
Beijing scrapped its decades-old one-child policy in 2016, replacing it with a two-child limit to try and stave off risks to its economy from a rapidly aging population. But that failed to result in a sustained surge in births given the high cost of raising children in Chinese cities, a challenge that persists to this day.
China is also expected to lower educational costs for families, step up tax and housing support, guarantee the legal interests of working women and clamp down on “sky-high” dowries, it said, without giving specifics. It would also look to educate young people “on marriage and love”.
China had a fertility rate of just 1.3 children per woman in 2020, recent data showed, on par with ageing societies like Japan and Italy and far short of the roughly 2.1 needed for replacement level.
