Global Courant 2023-05-15 07:20:18
By Farah Master
HONG KONG (Reuters) – China will launch pilot projects in more than 20 cities to create a “new age” marriage and child culture to promote a friendly environment for having children, the authorities’ latest move to the country’s declining birth rate.
China’s Family Planning Association, a national body that implements the government’s population and fertility measures, will launch projects to encourage women to marry and have children, the state-backed Global Times reported Monday.
Promoting marriage, having children at the right age, encouraging parents to share the responsibility of raising children, and curbing high “bride prices” and other outdated habits are the focus of the projects, the government said. Times.
Cities included in the pilot include the manufacturing hub Guangzhou and Handan in China’s Hebei province. The association has already launched projects in 20 cities, including Beijing, last year, according to the Times.
“Society needs to be more supportive of young people about the concept of marriage and childbirth,” demographer He Yafu told the Times.
The projects come amid a wave of measures being rolled out by China’s provinces to encourage people to have children, including tax breaks, housing subsidies and free or subsidized education for having a third child.
China pursued a rigid one-child policy from 1980 to 2015 – the root of many of its demographic challenges that have enabled India to become the world’s most populous nation. The limit has now been raised to three children.
Concerned about China’s first population decline in six decades and rapid aging, the government’s political advisers suggested in March that single and unmarried women should have access to egg freezing and IVF treatment, among other services to help boost the fertility rate of the country. country to increase.
Many women have been deterred from having more children or no children at all because of the cost of childcare and having to retire from their careers, with gender discrimination still a significant hurdle.
(Reporting by Farah Master and the Beijing newsroom; editing by Sonali Paul)
