China’s Rising Birthrates Due to New Two-Child Policy

A Chinese government official says that since implementing the government’s new two-child policy, which allows couples to have two children instead of one, the country’s birthrates rose to its highest level since 2000.

Yang Wenzhuang of the National Health and Family Planning Commission told reporters that China’s number of births reached 17.86 million last year, up about 1.4 million compared with the 2011-15 average,

“While the total number of women of child-bearing age fell by five million, the number of births increased significantly, showing that the family planning policy adjustments were extremely timely and extremely effective,” he said.

China issued guidelines two years ago allowing parents to have two children after the government expressed concern about the costs of supporting an increasingly ageing population and its dwindling workforce.

The world’s most populous country began implementing its controversial “one-child policy” in the 1970’s in order to limit population growth.

Yang also said that the number of women of child-bearing age was expected to go down by about five million a year in the period from 2016 to 2020, but China hopes to keep birthrates to about 17 million to 20 million a year.

China has already made provisions to increase medical staff and add the number of hospital beds to be able to handle the fast-growing number of births. The government expects its total population to rise to about 1.42 billion by the end of the decade, up from 1.37 billion at the end of 2015.

Source: News.com.au