No children? Then pay up. Maternity fund floated as answer to China population crisis

TWO Chinese academics have proposed a novel idea to encourage childbirth in a country with an ageing population: make childless people or parents of just one child pay into a “maternity fund”.

The suggestion sparked a furious social media debate in a country where the Communist Party enforced a onechild policy for decades.

Beijing loosened the rules in 2016, allowing people to have two children, but childbirths have not increased as much as forecast.

The academics made their suggestion in the state-run Xinhua Daily, calling for those below the age of 40 and with fewer than two children to contribute annually to a fund that would offset childbirth costs for others.

“When the family has a second child or more, they can apply for relief from the fund as compensation for the income loss during the maternity period,” wrote Nanjing University professors Liu Zhibiao and Zhang Ye. Until withdrawn on retirement of the contributor, or on the birth of a second child, the contributions will subsidise families with more children.

The suggestion sparked outrage and mockery on Weibo, China’s Twitterlike social media platform. One user said: “why not make artificial inseminations to make us have quintuplets?”

State broadcaster CCTV called the idea “unfounded and inconsistent”.