China's Birth Rate Shrinking: Why China’s Piecemeal Child Subsidy Policy Failed to Deliver

A planned nationwide system for encouraging families to have more children could fix the current fragmented efforts run by local governments

A planned nationwide system for encouraging families to have more children could fix the current fragmented efforts run by local governments. Photo: AI generated

In 2021, the government of Panzhihua in Southwest China’s Sichuan province started offering families in the city 500 yuan ($69) a month for every second or third child they had, with the subsidies lasting until the children turned 3.

It was the first time a government in China offered families a cash incentive for having more than one kid.

The policy kicked off a wave of local measures designed to encourage families to have more children. The local efforts were part of a framework the central government started building in 2021, a year before the country’s population shrank for the first time 60 years. Since then, 23 provinces have implemented some kind of child subsidy program.

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