China passes revised law allowing couples to have up to 3 children

Name: China expands two-child policy to three
Uploaded: 2021-08-20T11:30:12.000Z
Duration: 2 min 4 s
Description: China expands two-child policy to three

Amendment approved by top legislative body also includes support measures to encourage people to have bigger families

But demographer says it may not be enough to reverse fertility decline and calls for population control to be scrapped

Reading Time:2 minutes

Why you can trust SCMP

The latest census data showed that new births in China fell to 12 million last year – the lowest number since the 1960s. Photo: Xinhua

Jane Cai

Published: 7:30pm, 20 Aug 2021Updated: 11:19pm, 20 Aug 2021

China’s top legislative body passed an amendment to the country’s Population and Family Planning Law on Friday, endorsing a major policy shift allowing couples to have up to three children.

The revised law also includes support measures to encourage people to have bigger families, including financial, tax, insurance, education, housing and employment measures.

“This amendment adapts to our country’s demographic changes, responds to people’s major concerns and lays a legal basis for the implementation of the three-child policy,” a lawmaker from the National People’s Congress Standing Committee told state news agency Xinhua.

After ending its decades-old one-child policy in 2016, allowing couples to have two children, Beijing announced in May that it would relax the rules further and let couples have a third child, as it grapples with the challenges of a rapidly ageing population.

02:04

China expands two-child policy to three

It came after census data released in May showed that the number of new births fell for a fourth consecutive year – 12 million babies were born in 2020, down from 14.65 million the previous year. That was an 18 per cent year-on-year decline in the birth rate and the lowest number of births since the 1960s.

The census data also showed that China’s fertility rate fell to 1.3 children per woman, well below the replacement level of 2.1 needed for a stable population. By comparison, Japan – another rapidly ageing society – had a fertility rate of 1.369 in 2020.