Couples in China will receive cash for having children
China, once the world’s most populous country, has been struggling with a declining birth rate for several years. To overcome this problem, Beijing has introduced a new initiative. According to the project, from now on, Chinese couples will receive cash for having children.
Quoting Chinese government officials, a report by Singapore-based media outlet The Straits Times said that starting from January 1, 2025, every Chinese couple who has a child will receive an annual cash payment of 3,600 yuan (equivalent to 78,484 Bangladeshi taka) from the government for child-rearing expenses. Couples will receive this amount every year until their child turns three.
According to World Bank data, China’s current population is 1.41 billion. Although it was once the world’s most populous country, India is now in first place in terms of total population, with China in second.
To control its population, China adopted the one-child policy in the 1980s. But since 2010, the birth rate has been declining, leading to crises such as gender imbalance, a growing elderly population, and a shrinking workforce. As a result, Beijing scrapped the one-child policy in 2016 and introduced a two-child policy.
Later, in 2021, the two-child policy was replaced by a three-child policy, but that did not improve the situation. Instead, China recorded record-low birth rates in 2022, 2023, and 2024 for three consecutive years.
China, the world’s second-largest economy, lost its status as the most populous country in 2023. A UN report stated that if the annual birth rate does not increase, China’s population will fall to 1.3 billion by 2050. By 2100, it is projected to drop further to 800 million.
