Key Highlights
- Meanwhile, services such as child care and matchmaking remain duty-free.
- The move comes after China last year allocated 90 billion yuan (USD12.7 billion) for a national child care programme giving families a one-off payment of around 3,600 yuan (over USD500) for every child age three or under.
- I have studied China’s demography for almost 40 years and know that past attempts by the country’s communist government to reverse slumping fertility rates through policies encouraging couples to have more children have not worked.
- I do not expect these new moves to have much, if any, effect on reversing the fertility rate decline to one of the world’s lowest and far below the 2.1 “replacement rate” needed to maintain a stable population.
- In many ways, the 13 per cent tax on contraceptives is symbolic.
