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Letters | China birth rate: first-world problem needs first-world solutions
- Baby bonuses, increased maternity leave and subsidised child care are just some of the incentives offered in Singapore and South Korea that China could consider
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China’s three-child policy is largely a reflection of the nation’s rapid economic success, which has left it with a low fertility rate as a result of scenarios typical of first world countries, including soaring child-bearing costs, improved education standards and shifting social attitudes.
For decades, China imposed a draconian one-child policy to tame its spiralling birth rate while poverty was more widespread and economic development limited. Forty years on, with an unfaltering track record of annual gross domestic product growth, the country now prides itself as the world’s second-largest economy. However, its birth rate has fallen to a 60-year low, rivalling those of developed countries.
Facing a rapidly ageing population, China reversed the one-child norm in 2016 and introduced a two-child policy, which has now been relaxed to three as the country attempts to rebalance its demographic structure. However, it must be noted that many couples were not convinced by the previous change in rules, and births in 2019 fell to the lowest level in almost six decades.
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China expands two-child policy to three
China expands two-child policy to three
The nation is likely to need to introduce sweeteners to encourage more births in cities with high living costs and to combat the rise in childbearing age. These may be akin to those introduced in Singapore and South Korea: baby bonuses, increased maternity leave and subsidised childcare for working parents.
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China’s unbeatable economic growth is laudable and the change in its demographics inevitable. Its abrupt shifts in recent years to relax birth restrictions after decades of the one-child policy highlight the alarm caused by its greying population. But the country needs to combine pronatalist policymaking with enticing incentives if it wants to stabilise its population pyramid and avoid the fate of ageing societies such as Japan.
Whether societal optimism following the country’s effective pandemic management leads to a baby boom remains to be seen.
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Christopher Yeu, Mid-Levels
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