Public services cannot stay in one-child era

With the introduction of the policy to allow all couples to have three children, more attention needs to be paid to public services to support the policy as the current relevant regulations correspond to the “one-child era”. Much needs to be done to improve public services to better support the “three-child policy”. When the policy was freshly announced, some asked whether young people are ready to have three children, they said that they wanted to know whether the government was ready to help them.

A recent survey of 2,004 couples found that 89.9 percent of those with two children complained about the lack of supporting public services and the inconveniences caused by that. The survey also found that 94.6 percent expect further improvements in public services.

Raising children is not an easy task and families need support. The problems of time and financial resources need to be solved first. Do parents have the capability to bring up the children well? For that they need supporting public services, and not just for education and medical care.

At present, many public services are still not enough to help raise one child, never mind two or three. Schools, communities, public spaces, shopping mall facilities are all out of touch with the needs of families with three children.

Kindergartens are an example. Public ones which are cheap cannot meet the needs of current families with one or two children. Many have to send their children to private ones, which charge much higher tuition fees than public ones. Expenditure for sending three children to a private kindergarten will drain the revenue of a middle-income family. It would be impossible for ordinary families to afford such expenditure for three children.

It is also very expensive to go to doctors when three children need medical services. Babysitters are expensive too. For a white collar couple, it will be very difficult and financially burdensome to raise three children unless there is government support.

Policy formulation must be forward-looking. Policymakers need to do comprehensive reviews of the current public services provided, and make systematic adjustments as necessary.

Some progress has already been made in some regions. In Shanghai, for instance, there is already a regulation that every adult passenger can travel with two children for free. In Chengdu city, children of a family can go to the same school. Hope such pioneering moves will help to lead to more breakthroughs and more regions will follow suit.