China Offers Parents $1,500 in Bid to Boost Births
China has announced its first nationwide child subsidy, offering 3,600 yuan ($500) annually for each child under the age of three, in an effort to counter the country’s declining birth rate and ageing population.
The policy, unveiled on Monday, will support an estimated 20 million families, according to state media. Parents can receive up to 10,800 yuan ($1,500) per child over three years, with the payments applied retroactively from January 2025. Families with children born between 2022 and 2024 will also be eligible for partial subsidies.
The initiative follows years of falling birth rates despite the abolition of the one-child policy in 2015. In 2024, China recorded 9.54 million births, a slight increase from 2023, yet the overall population declined for the third consecutive year.
Local governments have already experimented with incentives to encourage larger families. Hohhot, in northern China, offers up to 100,000 yuan per baby for couples with at least three children, while Shenyang pays 500 yuan per month to families with a third child under three.
China is considered one of the costliest countries in the world to raise children, with the YuWa Population Research Institute estimating the average cost of raising a child to age 17 at $75,700.
The new subsidy comes alongside other measures to ease parenting costs, including a recent call from Beijing for local authorities to develop plans for free preschool education.
Officials hope the payments will encourage more couples to have children as the country faces a looming demographic crisis, with a shrinking workforce and rapidly ageing population of 1.4 billion people.
