Chinese Premier Li Keqiang: "Achieving Appropriate Birth Rate"... Will the One-Child Policy Be Abolished?

[Asia Economy Reporter Lim Chun-han] Amid growing concerns over low birth rates in the populous country of China, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang has proposed "promoting the realization of an appropriate fertility rate," according to Hong Kong's Ming Pao on the 7th. The report also forecasted that China's family planning law, which restricts births to three or more children, is expected to be abolished.

Ming Pao reported that Premier Li Keqiang (李克强) proposed "promoting the realization of an appropriate fertility rate" during the government work report at the 4th annual session of the 13th National People's Congress (NPC) held at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing (北京) on the 5th. This was described as the first such proposal since China implemented the two-child policy in 2016. In his work report, Premier Li stated the implementation of a national strategy to "actively respond to population aging, promote the realization of an appropriate fertility rate, and gradually delay the retirement age."

China abolished the "one family, one child policy," which was forcibly implemented in 1978 to curb rapid population growth, in 2016. Since then, all Chinese parents have been allowed to have two children, but the family planning law still stipulates fines for families having three or more children.

Ming Pao pointed out that although China has pushed the two-child policy, it has failed to prevent the decline in birth rates and population aging. Yi Fuxian (易富賢), a researcher at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who has studied China's population issues for 20 years, told Ming Pao, "Depending on the results of the 7th China Population Census to be released next month, China will adjust its population policy, and the family planning law will become a thing of the past."

According to Chinese statistics, the annual number of births, which had been maintained at around 16 million, increased to 17.86 million in 2016 due to the two-child policy, but then continued to decline in 2017 (17.23 million), 2018 (15.23 million), and 2019 (14.65 million).

The birth rate in 2019 was the lowest since the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949. Demographers have urged China to immediately abolish birth restrictions and adopt a more tolerant attitude toward out-of-wedlock births. Researcher Yi Fuxian said that even if birth restrictions are lifted, young Chinese women are reluctant to have children, so to increase the birth rate, the overall environment must be improved to allow women to balance work and childcare.