To overcome the one-child policy… China is looking for solutions to increase birthrates

The Chinese President Xi Jinping has announced that his country will implement policies to increase the birth rate, as policymakers fear that an imminent decline in population will harm the world’s second largest economy.

On the sidelines of the opening of the Communist Party Congress, which is held once every five years on Sunday, October 16, the Chinese president added that Beijing will establish a policy system to boost birth rates and follow a proactive national strategy in response to the aging population.

The Chinese authorities implemented a child-per-family system from 1980 to 2015, then switched to a three-children-per-family policy amid fears of a demographic downturn.

Last year, China introduced new measures to encourage childbearing, including tax cuts, longer maternity leave, population subsidies and extra money for the third child.

Yet Chinese women’s desire to have children is the lowest in the world, according to YuWa Population Research.

According to a report by the China Development Research Corporation, by 2050 China will have more than 500 million people aged 60 or older, or nearly a third of the total population projected at that time.

Beijing has acknowledged demographic challenges and announced last year that it would gradually raise the mandatory retirement age, which is 60 for men and 55 for most women.

China’s working-age population peaked in 2014, and is expected to shrink to less than a third of that peak by 2100, and economic growth may be affected as the workforce shrinks 15 years from now.

“The terrifying truth is that China is getting old before it gets rich,” Larry Hu, chief China economist at Macquarie Financial Services Group, said in a research note.

According to a United Nations study, China’s population of about 1.4 billion may almost halve by 2100, and the study indicated a sharp decline in population growth that raises deep questions for the country and its leaders.

The year 2100 may not seem close to us as individuals, but it is a very short period in the life of nations and states, and if this hypothesis is verified by the United Nations, it literally means that the giant China is moving at an accelerating pace towards extinction!

While demographic experts believe there is still plenty of time to avoid a population crisis, Beijing will need to take more forceful action in due course; an aging population, a declining birth rate, and fewer marriages – which are occurring at an accelerating pace – have brought the tipping point to come a decade faster than expected.

Theories differ as to why Chinese women continue to be reluctant to have children despite the government’s announced efforts to improve policies related to maternity leave and insurance, as well as to boost taxes and support housing policy.

Others believe that it may be due to delaying marriage, which delays births and discourages the desire to have children.