UPSC Articles
China Formally passes Three-Child Policy into law
Part of: GS Prelims and GS- II – Government policies and interventions
In news China’s legislature has formally amended the country’s family planning rules to allow couples to have three children.
It also announced a number of policy measures aimed at boosting declining birth rates.
- The amended law calls on the authorities to take supportive measures, including those in finances, taxes, insurance, education, housing and employment, to reduce families’ burdens as well as the cost of raising and educating children.
- China’s regulators in recent weeks have taken drastic measures to reduce education costs – cited in many surveys as a main reason why many couples prefer to have only one child – including by improving the booming private education industry, which may be ordered to go non-profit according to reports.
- The changes come in the wake of China’s once-in-ten year population census that recorded rapidly declining birth rates over the past decade.
- According to The National Bureau of Statistics 12 million babies were born last year, the lowest number since 1961.
- In 2016 also a “two-child policy” was introduced that largely failed to boost birth rates.
- Ageing crisis “might be the biggest challenge the Chinese nation faces in the next century.”
News source: TH
