Daily News Capsule

China is going to allow couples of its country to have their third child, the china government said on Monday, further the relaxation for family planning rules five years after a “two-child policy” that failed up to a great extent in boosting birth rates.

The announcement came by a meeting followed by 25 members Politurbo, chaired by China’s President and Communist Party of China General Secretary Xi Jinping, “to hear reports on major policy measures to actively address the aging of the population during the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-2025)”, State media said.

For 40 years, China executed a controversial one-child policy that was the strictest family planning regulation globally and was imposed in 2016 due to the overwhelmed concerns over an aging workforce and economic dullness.

“To actively respond to the aging of the population… a couple can have three children, “Xinhua said, mentioning a Monday meeting of china’s elite Politurbo leadership committee hosted by president xi Jinping.

Despite the government’s continued efforts to encourage childbirths, China’s annual births have continued to crash to a record low of 12 million in 2020, the national bureau of statistics said last month.

Furthermore, China’s fertility rate is low as it needed to maintain a stable population, the bureau concluded.

Also, the once in a decade 2020 census results published last month show that China’s population expands at its lowest rate since the 1960s, reaching 1.41 billion.

It comes along with the sharp drop in the population of working-age people, raising fears of an emerging demographic crisis.

China’s gender balance has also been disturbed by decades of the one-child policy. Also because of the traditional preference for boys, which then promoted sex-selective abortions and thus abandoned girl child.

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