China Considers New Strategy to Lift Flagging Birthrate
China is considering additional measures to increase its birth rate, more than four years after ending its controversial one-child policy.
For decades, China imposed strict controls on additional births in the name of preserving scarce resources for its burgeoning economy.
But its declining birth rate is now seen as a major threat to economic progress and social stability.
On Thursday, the National Health Commission issued a statement saying it will carry out an investigation to “further stimulate the potential for birth.”
He said the initiative will focus first on northeast China, the country’s former industrial heartland that has seen a significant population decline as young people and families leave in search of better opportunities elsewhere.
The region comprising the three provinces of Liaoning, Jilin, and Heilongjiang experienced a decline in total population for the seventh consecutive year by 427,300 in 2019 compared to 2018.
Authorities said last week that registered new births fell 15.3 percent last year to just 10 million.
China abandoned its one-child policy in 2016 to allow families to have an additional child.
However, the measure only had a temporary effect on the birth rate, with many couples citing the high cost of raising children and other economic and social barriers to deciding not to have more children.
Experts have called for more reforms due to economic concerns and the problem of an aging population.
China had a population of 1.34 billion in 2010 with an annual growth rate of 0.57%, up from 1.07% the previous decade, data from the statistics office show.
The last census was conducted in the second half of last year and the results have yet to be published.
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