Xi Jinping says China will create policies to increase birth rate in face of ageing population

"We will establish a policy system to boost birth rates and pursue a proactive national strategy in response to population ageing," Xi told some 2,300 delegates at the 20th Party Congress in Beijing on Sunday, Reuters reported.

China imposed a one-child policy from 1980 to 2015 with authorities ensuring strict implementation. This led to a huge decline in birth rates and forced the communist government to revise the policy to a "three-child" norm.

Currently, China has 1.4 billion people, the most in the world but its birth rate fell to 1.16 in 2021 below 2.1 OED standard required to maintain a stable population, said the report.

This year, China's birth rate is set to fall to record lows, dipping below 10 million from last year's 10.6 million babies - already down 11.5 percent from 2020, the report said citing demographers.

The Chinese authorities have taken several measures to encourage people to have more babies.

These include tax deductions, longer maternity leave, enhanced medical insurance, housing subsidies, extra money for a third child and a crackdown on expensive private tutoring, the report said.

A survey published in February by the think-tank YuWa Population Research revealed that Chinese women have the lowest desire to have babies compared to women in other parts of the world.

According to demographers high education costs, low wages and notoriously long working hours as well as Covid-19 policies and economic growth concerns keep people from opting for more children, said the report.

The measures taken so far by the government are not enough to allay these concerns.