China birth rate: Beijing vows to be ‘inclusive’, will stop punishing people for having too many babies
- Reference to ‘family planning’ was dropped from the 14th five-year plan, an omission researchers say shows China is letting its controversial birth restrictions fade out
- Last year, the number of newborns in China sank to the lowest level since the Great Chinese Famine six decades ago and its population is rapidly ageing
China is inching closer to abandoning its decades-long policy of birth restrictions, as its slowing fertility rate and rapidly greying population threaten long-term growth prospects, analysts and researchers say.
The omission sends a clear message that the policy, which was a fundamental part of previous five-year plans, is on the way out and Chinese couples will soon have the right to decide how many children to have, analysts said.
Last year, the number of newborns in China sank to the lowest level since the Great Chinese Famine six decades ago. Mothers in China gave birth to 14.65 million babies in 2019, down from 15.23 million in 2018, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.
China, the world’s most populous country, dropped its one-child policy in 2016 to allow couples to have two children, although it has proven unsuccessful in boosting births.