PUBLISHED DECISION GUIDE
Official National Health Guide: Third-Child Policy to Unleash Childbirth Potential
China's new decision allows three children per couple, with supporting measures to improve nursery services, reduce costs, and enhance prenatal and postnatal care.
China has adopted a decision to permit couples to have three children, accompanied by a range of supporting measures aimed at optimizing the demographic structure and achieving long-term, balanced population development.
Independently written English guidance based on cited public sources. Every public guide is human reviewed; it is not an official translation of the source publisher.
Policy Overview
China has adopted a decision that allows couples to have three children, along with a series of supporting measures for its implementation, with the aim of optimizing the country's demographic structure and achieving long-term and balanced population development (9a497771-e5c5-4f68-b511-b955ac41867a).
Supporting Measures
The decision lays out supporting measures in three areas: strengthening child nursery services, reducing the cost of childbearing, and improving prenatal and postnatal services (9a497771-e5c5-4f68-b511-b955ac41867a).
Expert Insights
At a press conference on July 21, Yu Xuejun, deputy head of the National Health Commission (NHC), said the decision is more than just an improvement of the two-child birth policy. "These supporting measures focus on public concerns, integrate birth with marriage, bringing-up and education, and can help unleash the birth potential," he said (9a497771-e5c5-4f68-b511-b955ac41867a).
Childcare Services
There are approximately 42 million infants and children below the age of three in China, one third of whom entail strong demand for child nursery services, and yet only 5.5 percent have access to such services, said Yang Wenzhuang, head of the population and family department of the NHC (9a497771-e5c5-4f68-b511-b955ac41867a).
Having no people to look after children is a salient problem that constrains childbirth, Yang said, adding that the shrinking household size has weakened Chinese families' ability to care for the elderly and children (9a497771-e5c5-4f68-b511-b955ac41867a).
In response, universal childcare services of various types will be further expanded to relieve the burden on parents who lack adequate time and assistance (9a497771-e5c5-4f68-b511-b955ac41867a).
Public sources
Editorial process
Editorial review and corrections
This guide received human editorial review. Use its public sources and review date to assess the current information boundary.
Request an editorial correction