The Chinese government may consider giving families financial incentives to get a second child in the bid to reach higher birth rate targets.
It marks a dramatic turnaround from greater than four decades in the 二胎 when there are harsh penalties for having more than one, including fines and forced abortions.
Wang Peian, the vice-minister of your National Health and Family Planning Commission (NHFPC), said the commission is considering “birth rewards and subsidies” for second children, their state-owned China Daily reported on Tuesday.
Wang made the announcement on Saturday throughout a meeting of the China Social Welfare Academy, a Chinese NGO that works well closely with all the government. A spokesperson for that organization declined commenting on Wang’s speech to CNN.
The announcement was in part prompted by a survey the NHFPC completed in 2015, showing that 60% of families polled were reluctant to possess a second child because of financial constraints, in accordance with China Daily.
China overturned its one-child policy in October 2015, allowing couples across the country to possess two children. Birth rates have risen consequently, although the government is trying in order to meet higher birth rate targets since the population ages.
Lu Jiehua, a sociology professor at Peking University, said that financial incentives for a second child are a “positive signal.”
So how much the federal government can pay for to subsidize — within a country where the price of living and education are skyrocketing — will determine if the potential bonuses will work, he said.
“The financial incentives would require more effort off their government departments to cover the fee for raising a young child, which happens to be more significant than having a baby,” Lu said.
The main one-child policy was introduced in 1979 if the government feared a fast increase in population size right after the baby boom from the 1950s and 1960s.
The country’s fertility rate fell dramatically, from a peak of just about six births per female between 1960 and 1965 to 1.5 per woman between 1995 and 2014.
The 2-child policy officially began in 2016 beneath a government program to jump start that declining birth rate — especially because China faces a rapidly aging population as well as a shortage of working-age residents.
China is home to 114 million people over 65, and up to 90 million folks are anticipated to retire in the following three decades, leaving the labor force with even fewer people until newborns are of sufficient age to be effective.
By 2030, government entities has warned China can have one of the most aged population on Earth, using more than 400 million people over 60.
So far — when it comes to energizing China’s birth rate — both the-child policy is working, without or with subsidies.
The volume of babies born in 2016 jumped 7.9% through the previous year, based on government figures.
An overall total of 17.86 million babies were born in 2016, an increase of 1.31 million within the total in 2015. The new total represents the greatest annual variety of newborns since 2000, dexrpky25 to government data.
Challenges still remain in terms of strengthening the country’s newest workforce.
Lu stated that women in China who definitely are now of child-bearing age were raised underneath the 房屋二胎. Having grown up under strict family planning policies, lots of people are inclined not to have children — much less second pregnancies.