Beijing: China on Monday announced that it will allow couples to have up to three children, a major policy shift from the existing limit of two after recent data showed a dramatic decline in births in the world’s most populous country.
The latest move was approved by President Xi Jinping in a politburo meeting, state media said.
China scrapped its decades-old one-child policy in 2016, replacing it with a two-child limit which has failed to lead to a sustained upsurge in births.
“To further optimise the birth policy, (China) will implement a one-married-couple-can-have-three-children policy,” the official Xinhua news agency said in a report following a politburo meeting chaired by President Xi Jinping.
The policy change will come with “supportive measures, which will be conducive to improving our country’s population structure, fulfilling the country’s strategy of actively coping with an ageing population and maintaining the advantage, endowment of human resources”, Xinhua said.
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