China plans incentives to boost population growth and address ageing society: reports
- China reportedly considering financial and policy support in 2021-25 five-year plan to encourage couples to have more children
- Policies to suppress population growth must be replaced by a system to boost fertility: Legal Daily
China will offer extensive financial and policy support to encourage couples to have more children, the official China Daily cited experts as saying.
“More inclusive population policies will be introduced to improve fertility, the quality of the workforce and the structure of the population,” said Yuan Xin, vice-president of the China Population Association.
China’s population: the big picture of a greying society
The number of citizens aged 60 or over stood at 254 million at the end of last year, accounting for 18.1 per cent of the population. The number is expected to rise to 300 million by 2025 and 400 million by 2035, putting huge pressure on the country’s health and social care system, demographers say.
Workers angry at China’s plan to delay retirement for greying population
Demographers also predict that on current trends, the number of people of working age could decline by 200 million by 2050.
Despite the relaxation of the one-child policy in 2016, the number of live births per 1,000 people fell to a record low of 10.48 last year, down from 10.94 in 2018.
Policies aimed at suppressing population growth must be replaced by a system designed to boost fertility, the official Legal Daily said, citing government experts.
“To proactively tackle the ageing population, urgent measures are required to reform our country’s family planning policies and liberate fertility,” said Zheng Bingwen, an expert with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
