China to offer $500 per child in move to boost birth rate – DW – 07/28/2025
The Chinese government will offer parents subsidies of 3,600 yuan ($500, €429) per child under the age of three per year, Beijing's state media said Monday.
China's population has declined for three consecutive years, the world's second most populous nation — after India — is facing an emerging demographic crisis.
The number of births in 2024 — 9.54 million — was half as many as in 2016, the year that ended its one-child policy that was in place for more than three decades.
Marriage rates in China have also hit a record low. Young couples put off having babies due to the high cost of raising children and career concerns.
More than 20 provincial-level administrations in China now offer childcare subsidies, according to official data.
In March, Hohhot, the capital of Inner Mongolia in northern China, started giving families money to have more children. Couples with three or more children can get up to 100,000 yuan for each new baby.
In Shenyang, in northeastern Liaoning province, local authorities give families who have a third child 500 yuan per month until the child turns three.
In order to create a "fertility-friendly society", China's southwestern Sichuan province is proposing to increase marriage leave from 5 to 25 days, and more than double the current 60-day maternity leave to 150 days.
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Analysts said the subsidies are a positive step, but warned they won't be enough on their own to reverse China's population decline or lift its sluggish domestic spending.
Zhiwei Zhang, president and chief economist at Pinpoint Asset Management, told Reuters that the new subsidy showed the government had recognized the "serious challenge" that low fertility poses to the economy.
Zichun Huang, China economist at Capital Economics, said the policy marked a "major milestone" in terms of direct handouts to households and could lay the groundwork for more fiscal transfers in the future.
But he also said the sums were too small to have a "near-term impact on the birth rate or consumption."
"For young couples who just got married and already have a baby, it might actually encourage them to consider having a second child," Wang Xue, a mother to a nine-year-old son from Beijing, told AFP.
But she said the new measures would not be enough to convince her to have a second child.
"Having one child is manageable, but if I had two, I might feel a bit of (financial) pressure," the 36-year-old told AFP.
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They opposed government proposals that include equal inheritance rights for women, a ban on polygamy, and recognition of sex workers as laborers. Foyez Ahammad, senior assistant press secretary of the interim government, told DW that HRW's expectation of reducing human rights violations to zero may not have been achieved, but significant progress has been made towards reducing it. "HRW has expressed its dissatisfaction [with] many issues as their expectation after the era of Sheikh Hasina didn't meet to the level they expected," Ahammad said. "Bangladesh was in a condition of massive human rights violations, where hundreds of secret prisons were operating, and enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings happened," he added, noting that press freedom "went down to zero" under Hasina's rule. "We have made progress from that situation within a short period. For example, media houses that were closed down in the past reopened," added Ahammad, who said that ordinary people are expressing their opinions openly, including on social media. "They are even criticizing the government in state-run broadcasters, which didn't happen in the past," he said. Hasina's supporters, however, do not agree with these claims and point to a crackdown on their party under the interim government. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Yunus' interim government has banned all political activities of Hasina's Awami League until a special tribunal completes a trial of the party and its leaders over the deaths of hundreds of people during last year's mass uprising. Following the ban, senior Awami League politician Mohammad A. Arafat claimed Yunus was trying to "keep his unconstitutional regime in power and delay elections." Speaking to DW from an unknown location in May, the former information minister said Yunus was trying to secure the support of Islamists and the National Citizens' Party — which spearheaded the move against the Awami League — by banning the former ruling party. "The only way the Islamists can make their way into parliament is by banning AL," Arafat said. The tribunal against Hasina, former Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan and former police chief Chowdhury Abdullah Al-Mamun has set August 3 and 4 for the prosecution's statement. Despite the human rights situation, the interim government has made some economic progress. It has announced training programs for young people and courted foreign investment to create jobs. Bangladesh, the world's second-largest garment supplier, on Friday secured a 20% tariff on exports to the United States — down from the 35% initially proposed by US President Donald Trump. The 20% rate, which will come into effect on August 7, is comparable to Bangladesh's key apparel-sector competitors such as Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Pakistan, and Indonesia, which received rates between 19% and 20%. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video
