After scrapping its one child policy in 2016, the Chinese government has again announced that couples can now have up to three children.
China made the announcement this week, in a major shift from the existing limit of two after recent data showed a dramatic decline in births in the world’s most populous country.
The government has said that this new policy will come with supportive measures, which will be conducive to improving our country’s population structure as the cost of raising children in cities has deterred many Chinese couples.
The policy and everything that comes with it are measures to help the country with its strategy of actively coping with an ageing population and maintaining the advantage, endowment of human resources.
Some experts are however sceptical of the policies impact. According to Hao Zhou, a senior economist at Commerzbank “If relaxing the birth policy was effective, the current two-child policy should have proven to be effective too”.
He is of the opinion that young people will have 2 children at the most. “The fundamental issue is living costs are too high and life pressures are too huge.”
Many young Chinese today were born into the one-child policy, which means that they will ultimately be the sole carers for their parents as they near retirement. As this generation retires, the labour market has began to shrink, meaning that Chinese youths today accept that they have to work longer hours and possibly more hours.
In China today there are millions more men than women due to historic femicide – with many families preferring a son in order to continue the family line – some young men accept that they will potentially never meet a partner in their lifetime. Meanwhile statistics show more women choosing to pursue further education and employment, rather than settle down early to start a family.
