Policy shift over family planning is suggested by experts

With the expected decline in population imminent, family planning policy in China should be further relaxed to curtail the social and economic consequences of a shrinking workforce and an aging populace, experts said.

Birth totals over the past few years－since the 2016 adoption of the universal second-child policy, the latest policy relaxation in family planning－have shown the policy adjustment did not boost population growth effectively, and further relaxation is needed, said Lu Jiehua, a sociology professor at Peking University.

"The next step should be to abolish all restrictions on the number of births, and carry out effective measures so couples who want to have more babies can do so," he said. "We cannot just watch the sustained decline of the fertility rate and do nothing. That would cause a significant impact to the country's development and national security."

Experts have predicted a fall in China's population would appear within the next 10 years or sooner, the first time in recent decades. The population may peak in 2027 and then start to decline if the fertility rate remains unchanged, according to a report released by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences last year.

However, a new study published in the medical journal The Lancet on July 15 said China's population may peak at 2024, to be followed by steady declines. By the end of the century, the total population could drop to 732 million, a 48 percent decline over the level of 2017, making China the third most populous country after India and Nigeria, the study said.

World population may peak in 2064 at nearly 10 billion and decline to 8.8 billion by 2100. India may start to see its population decline in 2048 and the United States in 2062, according to the study.

"The prediction that China's population may be reduced to 732 million by the end of the century may be based on extreme assumptions, but it serves as enough of a warning for us," Lu said. "With changes in total population, China's workforce would also see great declines."

The birthrate of the Chinese mainland dropped to 10.48 per 1,000 last year, the lowest in the past seven decades, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. The number of births was 14.65 million, a decrease of 580,000 from the previous year, marking the third consecutive year of falling births following the adoption of the universal second-child policy at the beginning of 2016.

The policy encourages all couples to have two children as a way to boost births to cope with rapid population aging in China.

However, experts have said multiple reasons have caused a decline in births despite the policy, including a reluctance among young people to have more children and a dwindling number of women of childbearing age.

To further encourage implementation of the policy, authorities across China have been implementing measures such as extending maternal leave and reducing taxes for couples with two children. More policies have been enacted recently by local governments.

In June, a revised regulation on family planning was adopted in Henan province to encourage all couples, including remarried couples, to give birth to two children. In the Ningxia Hui autonomous region, a revised regulation was approved that abolished rules that said government employees must be fired for violating family planning policies.

China's population development has been undergoing tremendous changes. Strict, punitive measures included by local authorities in many regulations, such as automatically dismissing government employees for having more children than allowed by law, contradict the general policy trend of encouraging births, according to the autonomous region's legislative body.

Government employees, however, could still face punishment for breaking family planning law and regulations, ranging from a warning to being removed from a post, according to the regulation.

In Suzhou, Jiangsu province, a regulation on protecting women's rights that was approved in June stipulates that employers cannot lower female employees' wages after they get pregnant or give birth. Male employees can also apply for leave to help take of babies under a year old, the regulation said.

Yuan Xin, a professor of population studies at Nankai University, said the general trend for population policies in China is that the family planning policy will be further relaxed to counter the prospect of a dwindling population. However, a decrease in the population is inevitable even if the policy is further relaxed.

"With social and economic development, it is a general trend in China and across the world that people tend to have fewer children," he said.