China relaxes its birth rate policy and allows families to have up to three children

This announcement comes as China is experiencing a sharp slowdown in its population growth. In 2016, the country had already relaxed its rules, allowing families to have a second child.

Fewer and fewer children and more and more elderly people. China decided on Monday, May 31, to abolish the two-child limit per couple in the hope of boosting the birth rate in the world’s most populous country. This announcement comes three weeks after the results of its latest decennial census, which revealed a sharp slowdown in population growth. “A couple is [now] allowed to have three children,” the Xinhua news agency announced, citing the conclusions of a meeting of the Communist Party’s Politburo.

Three decades of the one-child policy

This policy must be accompanied by “support measures” for families, the agency added, without providing further details. After more than three decades of the one-child policy, China had already relaxed its rules in 2016, allowing all Chinese citizens to have a second child. But this has not succeeded in reviving the birth rate.

Last year, the number of births fell to 12 million, compared to 14.65 million in 2019. That year, the birth rate (10.48 per 1,000) was already at its lowest since the proclamation of the People’s Republic of China by Mao Zedong in 1949.

The reasons for the decline in births are numerous: a decrease in the number of marriages, rising housing and education costs, and an excess of men compared to women due to the traditional preference for male children. AFP

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