China will now allow all couples to have a third child as it looks to arrest the shrinking birth rate. The country also has a considerable ageing population. An ageing population and shrinking birth rate does not have a positive impact on the long-term economic prospects of the country.
According to a statement in Xinhua News Agency, the Politburo has also stressed that they will properly implement the delay in retirement age.
China’s census, released earlier this month, showed that around 12 million babies were born last year – a significant decrease from the 18 million in 2016, and the lowest number of births recorded since the 1960s.
The “one-child” policy was imposed in 1980 as a way to slow population growth and bolster the economic boom that was then just beginning.
In 2013, as Chinese officials began to understand the implications of the country’s aging population, the government allowed parents who were from one-child families to have two children themselves. Two years later, the limit was raised to two children for everyone, effective Jan. 1, 2016.