China is planning new measures to encourage more people to have children and deal with its growing aging population, but an analyst warned that more steps may be needed to stem the population decline, Newsweek reported.
Why It Matters
According to the publication, the birth rate increased slightly in 2024, largely attributed to the end of China’s strict anti-pandemic policies, but the birth rate has continued to decline over the years. China’s fertility rate stands at just 1.0 births per woman in 2024, well below the 2.1 replacement level needed to sustain population growth.
This downward trend continues in the country despite the end of the one-child policy and a wave of maternity measures. Also, China is steadily moving over time toward the United Nations (UN) classification as a “super-aged” society. The country’s working population aged 14 to 64 is expected to shrink from 70 to 64 percent by 2040, a long-term drag on the world’s second-largest economy.
Encouragement of childbearing and provision of government benefits
Documents submitted this week ahead of the annual session of China’s rubber-stamp congress outline ways to ease the problems of an aging population and help encourage younger couples to have more children.
One such plan includes a modest increase in minimum basic benefits for elderly people in rural areas and unemployed people in cities, according to a Reuters report published this week. On the other hand, another initiative seeks to expand services for people with disabilities in China’s often neglected rural areas.
Premier Li Qiang also outlined plans to prudently advance reforms to gradually raise the statutory retirement age, a change officially starting this year, marking the first adjustment in decades.
According to Reuters, the country’s policymakers are proposing subsidies for early child care and expanding services for women in the early stages of pregnancy, without giving further details.
Reuters also reported that Chinese authorities have tried to introduce incentives and measures to encourage couples to have children, including extended maternity leave while working in the country, financial and tax incentives for having children, and housing subsidies.
Notably, the high cost of raising children and discrimination in the workplace are often cited as major reasons why many Chinese women delay childbearing in order to advance their careers.
In this regard, Xiujian Peng, senior research fellow at Victoria University’s Center of Policy Studies in Melbourne, told Newsweek, “International experience suggests that more comprehensive policies tend to be more effective. For example, France successfully increased its fertility rate from 1.64 in 1993 to 1.8-1.9 between the 1990s and 2010s, while Denmark saw a rise from 1.38 in 1983 to 1.7-1.8 over the same period.”
Both countries achieved this by implementing a policy mix of high subsidies, universal childcare, and flexible work arrangements, Peng added.
What happens next?
However, like neighboring Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea, China’s birth rate may decline as changing social attitudes and family and personal economic pressures prevent the younger generation from having large families.
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