China tackles falling birth rate with funding for fertility treatment
THE Chinese government will pay for families to have fertility treatment in an attempt to combat declining birth rates.
Couples in Beijing will benefit from funding of £3,000 towards treatment including IVF from next month.
A total of 16 medical services using assisted reproductive technologies will be covered by the city’s state insurance, effective from March 26, according to the Beijing Daily.
The new reproductive coverage could help reduce out-of-pocket costs and benefit couples in lower income brackets seeking to have babies and those with little or no access to private medical insurance.
China will work towards achieving an “appropriate” birth rate, Premier Li Keqiang said at the start of the annual parliamentary meeting last March.
While the policy has broadly been welcomed, some have been critical that it has not been extended to single women.
The birth rate in China dropped to its lowest level in more than seven decades last year, heaping pressure on the government to act. China recorded 7.52 births per 1,000 people in 2021, the lowest since 1949.
That amounted to 10.62 million births, a reduction of 12 per cent compared with 12 million recorded in 2020.
China dropped its one-child policy in 2015 but couples are still deterred from having children owing to high costs and discrimination that many mothers face in the workplace. Last year, Beijing loosened restrictions to allow three babies per family.
Earlier this year, the governmentbacked organisation China Familyplanning Organisation set out a “campaign of intervention” to reduce the number of abortions among young and unmarried women, along with unplanned pregnancies.
At the height of the one-child policy, around 14 million abortions were performed in China, and in 2020 the National Health Commission found that the number was just under nine million.
Other provinces in China have devised legislation to counter the birthrate crisis, with Jilin province in the north east offering married couples up to 200,000 yuan (£23,400) in bank loans if they decide to have children.