China’s Family Planning: Over 17 Million Babies Born In 2016 Sequel To New Policy

The law introduced in January 2016 allows all married couples to have two children.

An increasing number of married Chinese couples are taking advantage of a new family planning policy that came into force after 40 years of strict birth controls to keep the huge population under check. The universal two-child policy, which took effect on January 1, 2016, allows about 90 million more couples to have second babies.

The National Health and Family Planning Commission reported that the number of births in 2016 reached 17.86 million, the highest since 2000, and 11.5 per cent more than in 2015. More than 45 per cent of the babies were born to couples who already had at least one child. The proportion was about 30 per cent before 2013.   

However, the previous one-child policy did not necessarily mean that a married couple was limited to a child each. Rather, the policy allowed couples to have two or more children depending on certain criteria, explained Yang Juhua, a Professor of Demography with the Centre for Population and Development Studies, School of Sociology and Demography, Renmin University of China, Beijing.

“Government encourages couples to have second children by developing family-friendly policies and offering childcare assistance like nursery homes and kindergarten for babies under three,” Prof. Yang said. However, a survey published in December 2016 by the All-China Women’s Federation and the National Innovation Centre for Assessment of Basic Education Quality showed that out of 10,300 families with children 15-years-old across the country, 53.3 per cent expressed no desire ...