China will offer free preschool, subsidies, and cups of milk to get families to have more children, policies that could come to the US if its baby bust continues.
China’s population has plummeted for the third year in a row, largely due to the country’s infamous one-child policy as well as falling marriage rates.
Though couples in the country of 1.4billion have been allowed to have up to three children since 2021, China’s death rate has outnumbered its births for the past two years.
Officials announced earlier this month that couples living in Hohhot, the capital of Inner Mongolia, will receive one-time 10,000 yuan (about $1,400) payments for their first child and 10,000 yuan a year for the second child until they reach age five.
Families with a third child will receive 10,000 every year until the child turns 10. In total, this is twice the annual income of most local residents.
Hohhot also issued its ‘one cup of milk fertility care action for mothers,’ which offers mothers who give birth after March 1 a free cup of milk every day, along with two 3,000 yuan ($414) milk vouchers.
Children will also receive a free preschool education.
The US is seeing a similar fertility crisis, as births have fallen to an all-time low of 1.6 per woman, according to new CDC data published today.
China has implemented new incentives to address its falling population and birth rate (stock image)
The US is facing a similar birth rate decline. The above CDC graph shows the decrease in births and general fertility rate over time
Experts have warned that the US may need to implement measures similar to China’s to keep the population afloat.
However, experts also told DailyMail.com that the US should focus more on immigration and paid maternity and paternity leave to prevent population decline.
In 2023, the latest CDC data available, women in the US on average had 1.6 births each.
This is well below 2.1 in 1990, which is also the population replacement level – the amount of children a woman needs to have to sustain the current population.
The data also shows the total births per year decreased from about 4.1million in 1990 to 3.5million in 2023.
The decline was sharpest in teen mothers, with births dropping 73 percent in 2023 compared to 1990.
Women 20 to 24 had 476,760 fewer births in 2023 than 1990, a 44 percent decline, and those ages 25 to 29 had 290,541 fewer births, a 23 percent drop.
While births decreased in all age groups below age 30, women in their thirties and forties are having more children than previous decades.
The data shows women ages 30 to 24 had 211,989 more births in 2023 than in 1990, a 24 percent increase, and women ages 35 to 39 birthed 287,048 more children, a surge of 90 percent.
Even women 40 and older had 96,809 more births in 2023 than in 1990. This is a surge of 193 percent.
In China, the population decreased by 1.4million from 2023 to 2024, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.
The latest data also shows China’s birth rate at 1.2 births per woman, down from 2.7 in 1979, the year the country’s one-child policy was implemented.
The above CDC graph shows birth rates based on age group. Rates have declines in most age groups
Experts told DailyMail.com that addressing the falling birth rate in the US should focus on societal factors rather than financial incentives
In addition to overcoming the one-child policy, research from the Chinese Communist Party’s Development Research Center found the decline is largely due to ‘delayed marriage age, decreased willingness among young people to have children, reduction in the number of women of childbearing age, and higher prevalence of infertility and subfertility.’
Similar issues are thought to be at play in the US, as well as the high cost of living and a lack of universal maternal and paternal leave.
Karen Benjamin Guzzo, a family demographer at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, told The New York Times there is little evidence suggesting policies to reward people for having children work on their own.
Usha Haley, Barton Distinguished Chair in International Business at Wichita State University, told DailyMail.com that the US should focus on societal policies and boosting immigration, as ‘growth in population in the US has typically come from immigration’ and ‘first-generation immigrants tend to have more childrne.
She said: ‘The quickest way to raise the population in the US would be to encourage immigration and to provide more paid maternity and paternity leave.
‘The US has among the worst records in the developed world for both kinds of leave.’
Sarah Hayford, the director of the Institute for Population Research at Ohio State University, told The New York Times: ‘Having children is something that people feel like they can make a choice about.
‘They are really reluctant to enter into parenthood if they can’t provide what they think children need.’
