China mulling financial incentives to couples who plan their second child
BEIJING: China is considering handing out financial incentives to couples planning a second child as tight budgets have stopped willing parents from making the choice even though the law now allows them to have a second baby.
Many couples were deciding against a second child because of economic constraints, Wang Peian, vice minister of the National Health and Family Planning Commission (NHFPC) said at a weekend seminar.
Quoting a NHFPC survey, Wang said it found in 2015 found that “60% of families polled expressed reluctance to have a second baby largely due to economic constraints”.
China relaxed the controversial and strictly-implemented “one-child” policy two years ago, to allow Chinese couples to have a second child.
“Nationwide, the change led to 17.8 million births in 2016, an increase of more than 1.3 million compared with the previous year and the biggest annual increase in 20 years,” the state-controlled China Daily newspaper reported on Tuesday.
The statistic in China Daily was different from what official news agency Xinhua said last month: A total of 18.46 million new babies were born in China in 2016 of which nearly 9 million were the second child.
The numbers either way aren’t enough for the government with a sharp reduction of working age looming over China in the coming decades.
Wang said the government is considering introducing supporting measures including “birth rewards and subsidies” to encourage people to have another child.
“It is the first time that the top population authority has suggested such a move to boost the birthrate,” Yuan Xin, a professor at Nankai University in Tianjin told the newspaper. The report gave example of low-fertility countries like Japan where incentives like cash subsidies, prolonged maternity leave and tax breaks were introduced to boost the population