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Opinion | China’s three-child policy is not too little, too late, but a call to action
- The announcement of the policy reflects an awareness of the seriousness of the problem
- Addressing it comprehensively will require reforming the social security system, tackling soaring housing prices and improving access to basic public services
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China has just unveiled its new policy to encourage married couples to have up to three children. This policy alone won’t be enough to boost population growth, and more supportive measures and structural changes will also be needed.
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The alarm bell was sounded by the results of China’s latest national census released last month. The long-awaited headcount conducted in 2020 is crucial for government planners and enterprises to plot a course for the future. The result shows that China, with 1.41 billion people, is still the most populous country in the world.
But the data also exposes alarming trends: low fertility rates, an expanding ageing population and a significant reduction in the working-age population.
As population is a vitally important “long-term variable” in socioeconomic development, once such trends are established, they are extremely difficult to reverse. On the heels of the census came the new policy announcement on couples being allowed to have three children, as if underscoring the urgent need to take action.
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China 2020 census records slowest population growth in decades
China 2020 census records slowest population growth in decades
Optimists take comfort in the fact that labour resources are still abundant in a population that continues to grow, that population quality is improving, and that there is still population movement. But observers are dismayed at the low fertility rate of 1.3, below the 1.8 projected when the current “two-child policy” was implemented in 2016.
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The ageing population merely confirms prevailing perceptions. Both before and after the results, the public paid close attention to whether China had reached its population peak. Although the data gave no hint that population growth had peaked, it is only a matter of time.
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