SHANGHAI (Reuters) -China announced on Monday that couples would be allowed to have up to three children, up from the current limit of two, in a bid to reverse a rapid decline in new births.
Following are reactions from academics and economists.
ZHIWEI ZHANG, CHIEF ECONOMIST AT PINPOINT ASSET MANAGEMENT:
“The immediate impact is likely to be positive but small on the macro level. The long term impact depends on if the government can successfully reduce the cost for raising children – particularly education and housing.”
HAO ZHOU, SENIOR ECONOMIST ASIA, COMMERZBANK
“If relaxing the birth policy was effective, the current two-child policy should have proven to be effective too. But who wants to have three kids? Young people could have two kids at most. The fundamental issue is living costs are too high and life pressures are too huge.”
SHUANG DING, CHIEF ECONOMIST AT STANDARD CHARTERED
“This is without a doubt a step in the right direction, but still it’s a bit timid. The government could fully liberalise the birth policy. Even with a fully liberalised policy, birth rates may not increase substantially, so there’s no need for a still restricted policy. A fully liberalised birth policy should have been implemented at least five years ago, but it’s too late now, although it’s better late than never. “
YIFEI LI, SOCIOLOGIST, NYU SHANGHAI
“I feel the proposal fails to recognise the reasons behind the decline in fertility … People are held back not by the two-children limit, but by the incredibly high costs of raising children in today’s China. Housing, extracurricular activities, food, trips, and everything else adds up quickly. An effective policy should have provided more social support and welfare. Raising the limit itself is unlikely to tilt anyone’s calculus in a meaningful way, in my view.
“The challenges are so multi-faceted that it requires carefully coordinated actions in multiple policy areas to rebuild people’s confidence in the future… It is simply not wise to expect citizens to respond to policy changes so robotically.”
YE LIU, SOCIOLOGIST, KING’S COLLEGE LONDON
“In my view, it is a numbers game. In reality there is still a lack of concrete policy proposals in addressing three main obstacles that put families (in particular women) off from having more children.
“The three obstacles are childcare cost, employment discriminations against women of childbearing and child rearing years and a lack of safeguarding children’s welfare in various industries and private childcare providers.”
XU HONGCAI, DEPUTY DIRECTOR OF THE ECONOMIC POLICY COMMISSION AT CHINA ASSOCIATION OF POLICY SCIENCE
“This is a good and major step, but it could be difficult to reverse the declining birth rate. We should have other policies to encourage childbearing. The fertility rate is just 1.3, which is too low and this is a dangerous signal … We are sticking to gradual reforms and making progress while maintain stability.
“It’s okay to allow each family to have three children, which is more acceptable. It’s possible that some rural families want to have more children (if we fully remove controls): that could be troublesome.”
(Reporting by David Stanway, Stella Qiu and Kevin YaoEditing by Mark Potter)
