Thread: China announces three-child policy, in major policy shift

BEIJING — China announced on Monday that each couple would be permitted to have up to three children, a major policy shift from the existing limit of two children after recent data showed a dramatic decline in births in the world’s most populous country.


The change was approved during a politburo meeting chaired by President Xi Jinping, the official news agency Xinhua reported.


In 2016, China scrapped its decades-old one-child policy – initially imposed to halt a population explosion – with a two-child limit, which failed to result in a sustained surge in births as the high cost of raising children in Chinese cities deterred many couples from starting families.


Early this month, China’s once-in-a-decade census showed that the population grew at its slowest rate during the last decade since the 1950s, with data showing a fertility rate of 1.3 children per woman for 2020 alone, on par with aging societies like Japan and Italy.



China announces three-child policy, in major policy shift | Inquirer News

Gonna be needing people to replace those lost as cannon fodder

That's brought forward the extinction of a wide variety of rare wild animals.

Originally Posted by russellsimpson

The Indian population will certainly surpass the Chinese one if it hasn't done so already.

...agree: just look at Britain...

Originally Posted by russellsimpson

The Indian population will certainly surpass the Chinese one if it hasn't done so already.

Yes, China has finally 'progressed' to the state replacing the family/extended family . . . whereas in India tradition still rules with having many children equalling safety and security

Originally Posted by russellsimpson

It's surprising how quickly things change. Who could have imagined that China would suddenly be concerned with a low birth rate after being concerned with a high rate for so very long. Staggering really. The Indian population will certainly surpass the Chinese one if it hasn't done so already.

Just wait with your prediction after the plandemic...

BTW, why the Chinese just do not open their southern gates to get the new young blood free?

Originally Posted by Klondyke

BTW, why the Chinese just do not open their southern gates to get the new young blood free?

. . . and see a mass exodus of educated Chinese?

Originally Posted by panama hat

. . . and see a mass exodus of educated Chinese?

....and more would leave if permitted.

Originally Posted by Klondyke

Just wait with your prediction after the plandemic...

BTW, why the Chinese just do not open their southern gates to get the new young blood free?

BTW, China doesn't open gates. They just draw new borders and lock the gate.

They just draw new borders and lock the gate.

Such as?


The Chinese government has really done quite an amazing job, at least according to the parameters they defined. They have lifted the population of China out of poverty in the space of some 30 years- but as they made clear, a part of this drive was to control and reduce population growth. Social engineering. Genocide, if you like. All the cool people are genocidal now.

But be careful what you wish for. The demographic situation they created make it a certainty that India will eventually overtake China to be the worlds largest country- in both population and ultimately GDP terms (ergo military clout, diplomatic sway etc). IMHO, the multipolar world order that is emerging is no bad thing, although there will inevitably be tensions between the three stooges. One being overlooked with all this US hubris, is China vs India- and how that might go. But China just plain had to scrap it's birth control policy for the common people (rich folk could just pay the money and drop as many sprogs as they wanted, for a few years now). It was a correct, and inevitable decision.

Y'all worry too much. A nation of the elderly (who are not the least interested in you), plus spoilt, pampered manchild brats is unlikely to invade you, except maybe to sequester your women for breeding stock.

Originally Posted by Klondyke

Just wait with your prediction after the plandemic...

BTW, why the Chinese just do not open their southern gates to get the new young blood free?

I have forgotten to add to my advice ... as (please no names here)...

Originally Posted by HermantheGerman

BTW, China doesn't open gates. They just draw new borders and lock the gate.

Nice.

More ot the the coonts ? Thats all we need.

Originally Posted by sabang

Such as?


The Chinese government has really done quite an amazing job, at least according to the parameters they defined. They have lifted the population of China out of poverty in the space of some 30 years

Oh god that old Hoohoo chestnut.

Forgetting to mention of course that they have ruined the lives of untold people around the world by parasitically mopping up their resources, saddling their countries with unaffordable debt and leaving their farmland drenched in toxic chemicals.

China's New 'Three-Child Policy' Sparks Skepticism Over Costs to Parents


The ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) on Monday unveiled new plans to boost flagging birth rates and reverse population aging, raising the official limit on the number of children per couple from two to three.


The move came five years after the CCP scrapped a historic policy limiting most couples to just one child, which gave rise to decades of human rights abuses, including forced late-term abortions and sterilizations, as well as widespread monitoring of women's fertility by officials.


The new policy was announced as CCP general secretary Xi Jinping chaired a meeting of the Politburo geared towards addressing the aging of the Chinese population.


"China will support couples that wish to have a third child," state news agency Xinhua reported.


The Politburo concluded that "education and guidance should be provided to promote marriage and family values among marriage-age young people," it said, adding that tax and housing incentives would also be in the pipeline for couples wanting to have children.


Among the support measures planned by the government include improvements to prenatal and postnatal care, a universal childcare service, and reduced education costs for families.


China's fertility rate stood at around 1.3 children per woman in 2020, compared with the 2.1 children per woman needed for the population to replace itself.


Raising kids in China is a costly business, with parents stretched to find money for even one child's education. While state-run schools don't charge tuition until the 10th year of compulsory education, they increasingly demand nominal payments of various kinds, as well as payments for food and extracurricular activities.


There are signs that the people who do most of the mental, physical and emotional work of child-bearing and raising may not readily step up to solve the government's population problems, however.


Government interference


In a poll posted to the official Xinhua news agency account on the Weibo social media platform, 29,000 out of 31,000 respondents said they wouldn't consider having more children.


The poll was later removed, Reuters reported.


Zhang Jianping, a rights activist from the eastern province of Jiangsu, said government interference in people's private lives was never a good idea.


"It was wrong to impose curbs on births in the past, and it equally wrong to encourage more births today," Zhang told RFA. "When an economy develops to a certain level, a population will naturally start to shrink."


"Birth rates are falling in other places, including Taiwan and Canada, but they aren't intervening," Zhang said. "Actually, some developed countries don't need to intervene to achieve rising birth rates, because they offer free medical care and education."


"So we are just piling one error on top of another."


Shanghai-based retired professor Gu Guoping said that while couples -- single people aren't allowed to have children -- may be able to afford to have a child, they often can't also afford to raise that child.


"It's getting too expensive to raise just one kid now, let alone two or even three," Gu said. "Ordinary people don't make enough."


Retirement age extension


Gu said that people were far more willing to have kids back in the 1950s and 1960s, when there was far less income disparity between families.


"There weren't such big differences in income [back then]," he said. "Who is going to have a second or third kid now, even if you say they can?"


The new childbirth policy comes in tandem with plans to delay retirement for the working-age population, Xinhua reported, with people stopping work at 65 rather than at 60.


The move comes amid growing concerns about how a shrinking working-age population will fund the pensions of a growing number of older people.


Reactions to the policy on the social media platform Weibo were mixed.


"Have children if you want, don't if you don't: it's your business," user @wxw2021 commented on a news story about the policy announcement, while @Xiaoche_Xiaowu said: "Could you find me a spouse first?"


@Xinxing1007 wanted to know: "Are they thinking about raising salaries?" while @Three-year-old_Wo wanted to know: "Will there be any subsidies?"


@Taiyangda_3168 said the policy had "come at the right time," while @Miya36510 commented that "Housing prices and education policies need to keep in step" with the new rules.


China's New 'Three-Child Policy' Sparks Skepticism Over Costs to Parents — Radio Free Asia

There is a direct correlation between female education levels and birth rate.

If in doubt look at India.

The retirement age change from 60 to 65 is a major deal breaker I figure. I hope the changes there will be over many changes?

My thoughts are that Chinese woman simply don't want to have a handful of kids any more.

They will probably literally have to pay women for having children.

Originally Posted by Klondyke

Just wait with your prediction after the plandemic...

If they can be believed China has lost relatively few to you plondemic.

Originally Posted by Klondyke

as (please no names here)...

The main issue of the one child policy was that it broke the gender repartition as a boy was preferred by a lot of couples.

I think India has the same problem for a different reason, the parent of a girl have to pay for the wedding and the dowry.

Originally Posted by misskit

"It was wrong to impose curbs on births in the past, and it equally wrong to encourage more births today," Zhang told RFA. "When an economy develops to a certain level, a population will naturally start to shrink."

This is so true. Imagine how brainwashed these people were in the Mao days to not have children. All the children that were given away or killed (esp. females) because of this one child policy, and now the government wants more children being born? It is something government should not be intervening with bottom line.

I remember when living in China, many people were telling me that if they had two children that were different sexes they had to pay the government so much money because of it and now they are encouraging it..... go figure.

Why don't they just allow immigrants? Can you answer that one ohoh?

The population didn't take up the two-child option and they're certainly not taking up the three-child option.

Cost of living, cost of raising a child, quality of life etc... Welcome to the 'modern' world where not even the Communist Party can make you have more children. They can force-sterilise you if you're Tibetan or Uighur, but that's a different story.

Originally Posted by panama hat

The population didn't take up the two-child option and they're certainly not taking up the three-child option.

Cost of living, cost of raising a child, quality of life etc... Welcome to the 'modern' world where not even the Communist Party can make you have more children. They can force-sterilise you if you're Tibetan or Uighur, but that's a different story.

Jeezus PH take it easy. Remember who you are dealing with.

They will probably literally have to pay women for having children.

Yes, maybe. Like Singapore.

Originally Posted by misskit

China announced on Monday that each couple would be permitted to have up to three children

Does that include Muslims?