Maximum, that is.

1 child policy from 1979 to 2015.

2 child policy from 2015 to 2021.

3 child policy since 2021.

The announcement came after the release of the results of the Seventh National Population Census, which showed that the number of births in mainland China in 2020 was only 12 million, the lowest number of births since 1960, and the further aging of the population, against which the policy was born.[5] This was the slowest population growth rate China experienced.[6]

Although the CCP government had high expectations for the new policy,[16] in a 2021 online poll conducted by the state media Xinhua on its Weibo account, using the hashtag #AreYouReady for the new three-child policy, about 29,000 out of 31,000 respondents stated they would “never consider it.”[15]

  • morgan423@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    The one child policy is going to end up biting them in the demographics not too far down the road.

    • partial_accumen@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      It already has. Thats why its 36 years with “1 child” and only 6 years with “2 child” before it went to “3 child”, they’re deep in deficit and are trying to catch up.

      Further the new “3 child” policy isn’t just a passive allowance. The government of China is actively incentivizing parents to have children.

      “An extra month off and $80 monthly stipends and 30-day days of additional leave part of a series of sweetners local governments have unveiled as China kicks off the legislative process to allow married couples to have a third child in a drive to curb a precipitous decline in births.” source

      • Ð Greıt Þu̇mpkin@lemm.ee
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        6 months ago

        While that’s all relatively nice, it’s also a bandage on a gash. The number one predictor of how high your country’s fertility rate will go in a developed economy is access to affordable housing, and to tackle that, Beijing is gonna have to do some serious teeth gritting on the fact that right now housing is in a serious speculative loop, several people will buy units still under construction because it’s seen as the safest way to store capital in the country, they went from a country that shot land lords to a country that’s technically chalk full of them.

        • CosmoNova@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          While that’s all relatively nice, it’s also a bandage on a gash.

          Even saying it’s “nice” is an overstatement. With how quickly savings and jobs are vanishing and how expensive and stressful it is to raise a child, the population is more opposed to the idea of having children than ever before. Affordable housing isn’t the problem. There simply aren’t enough resources available to raise a new generation. The government will have to come up with something new if they want to prevent an all out crash of their economy because there is no way in hell the few young people will be able to support the massive aging population in the coming 2 decades.

      • mister_monster@monero.town
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        6 months ago

        Incentives to have children will never, ever get you to your desired fertility rate. The problem is, if you take taxes and then give it to people that have kids, you’re subsidizing having kids at the expense of those that don’t. That means you need a large population of people not having kids to afford it, if everyone takes advantage of it then you’ll wind up just taking peoples money and giving it back to them, which puts them right back where they were before your program.

        • duffman@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          We have always subsidized having kids over those who don’t. And honestly its the best use of our tax dollars. What do you think school is? Also, parents pay taxes before and after they raise children.

    • JackGreenEarth@lemm.ee
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      6 months ago

      Sure, we’ll have to get over that in the short term - all countries that is, not just China - but in the long term, population degrowth is actually a good thing. It means humans will be less bad for the environment, we will each have more individual worth in terms of things like voting, and more resources will be available for each individual.

      • classic@fedia.io
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        6 months ago

        Less people or less consumption. Ideally both, but one or the other will have to happen

        • minibyte@sh.itjust.works
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          6 months ago

          I keep hearing there’s a car shortage, or housing shortage. There’s just too many of us.

  • Fubarberry
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    6 months ago

    Why have a max number of kids at all? From what I hear, China desperately needs more kids.

    • emergencyfood@sh.itjust.works
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      6 months ago

      A gradual decline in population is a good thing, so they probably don’t want to overshoot too much. Also maybe the minorities pushed for keeping some restrictions.

      • Fubarberry
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        6 months ago

        From what I understand, the one child policy tanked their birthrate so much that the country is expected to never recover. Current economies are basically dependent on a growing population to support the elderly and retired members of the population. Countries can somewhat get by through immigration to prop up a low birthrate, but that can only take you so far.

        • emergencyfood@sh.itjust.works
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          6 months ago

          Current economies are basically dependent on a growing population to support the elderly and retired members of the population.

          This applies only when labour is in short supply. Japan and Germany have heavily automated their industry for this reason, and China seems to be on this track.

          Apart from the labour shortage, a gradually declining population is a good thing. The earth can only give us so many resources, and unless we reduce our numbers - particularly among the rich - we are headed towards extinction.