China’s National Health Commission (NHC) on Tuesday unveiled new initiatives to boost the country’s low birth rate, including efforts to discourage abortions.
In a release on Tuesday, the NHC announced the implementation of the Communist Party of China’s (CPC) Population and Family Planning Law to promote “the long-term balanced development of the population” through “active fertility support measures.”
To this end, it pledged to “do [its] best” to implement the new three-child policy with “support measures” in the form of fiscal, taxation, insurance, education, housing, and employment reforms that it hopes will “create a friendly social atmosphere for marriage and childbearing.” Notably, it also mentioned “reducing abortions” that are “not medically necessary.” It is estimated that 78% of unintended pregnancies in China are terminated.
The NHC called on “each province, city, and county” to establish state-run maternal and child healthcare institutions to ensure standardised practices across the country. Furthermore, it stressed on the need to introduce high-quality obstetrics to “comprehensively improve the conditions for hospital delivery.”
The Chinese government issued a new guideline on Tuesday to boost the nation's birth and fertility rates, which covers several areas including marriage, birth giving, child raising, education, housing, employment and healthcare. #China https://t.co/QEYhiSZstn pic.twitter.com/qQ5qKbCjf4
— CCTV+ (@CCTV_Plus) August 17, 2022
In this regard, it outlined a plan to upgrade premarital health care, pre-pregnancy health care, prenatal screening and prenatal diagnosis services, and simultaneously improve perinatal and prenatal and postnatal services. This will be complemented with additional expenditure on children’s health services through the construction of 10 national regional pediatric medical centres. This will go hand in hand with increased spending on infertility prevention and treatment and assisted reproductive technology systems.
Additionally, it vowed to restructure the country’s maternity leave system and improve maternity insurance and other related social insurance systems. It also seeks to lower the operating costs of childcare institutions through preferential taxes, while local governments will be tasked with monitoring and controlling the fees charged by these institutions. Employers, too, will be empowered to provide workers with access to childcare services and be encouraged to implement “flexible working methods” (such as work-from-home provisions) and create “family-friendly workplaces.” Aside from childcare, the NHC also calls for universal access to preschool education through compulsory education.
The government also endeavours to develop affordable rental housing through “public rental housing guarantees,” wherein cities and towns will be directed to allocate housing types according to the number of family members. Homebuyers will also be provided with housing provident fund loans.
On the administrative front, it will improve the birth registration system as well as documentation on vaccinations, property registrations, medical insurance, and social security.
Seventeen government departments — including the National Health Commission, the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Education, and the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development — released a guideline on Tuesday to boost fertility across the country. pic.twitter.com/p8G3XWsk0e
— China Perspective (@China_Fact) August 17, 2022
At the societal level, the government is looking to break “old rules and bad habits” such as extravagant marriages and “high-priced betrothal gifts.” It will also actively promote marriage and childbearing, the even distribution of parental duties, and the reformation of marriage customs.
The latest notice comes as the Asian giant faces mounting demographic challenges. Its latest census report, which was published last year, pointed to an overall decline in fertility rates and an increase in life expectancy, indicating that China faces an ageing population for a long time unless strong policy intervention is introduced.
According to the results of the ten-year population survey, the number of newborns in China in 2020 was down to 12 million from 14.65 million in 2019, which marks a drop for the fourth consecutive year. China’s total fertility rate was estimated at 1.16 births per woman last year. Furthermore, the number of births this year is projected to drop below 10 million, 11.5% below 2020 levels.
On one hand, this has been attributed to the country’s growing middle class. However, the data also shows that there are 35 million more men than women in the country, indicating that many female children are aborted, further lowering the birthrate.
With birth fertility rates in China expected to drop even lower in the coming years, possibly even becoming the lowest in the world in the absence of significant policy intervention, demographers predict that India will overtake China as the world’s most populous country by 2023, due to its a much higher fertility rate. Population growth in China sowed ever since a one-child policy was introduced in the late 1970s when the size of its population was the world’s largest at more than 1.39 billion people. At the current rate, the country’s population will begin to shrink in 2025.
It abandoned the one-child policy in 2016 and in a historic shift last year, however, Beijing announced that it was further loosening its family planning policy to allow every married couple to have up to three children.
The latest guidelines were jointly released by 17 government departments, which analysts quoted by Chines state-owned media house Global Times said was a “rare” move. They also noted that the guidelines were “detailed and comprehensive,” which underscores “the seriousness of the growth rate of China’s population.”