China to fully cover all costs of child birth to promote birth rate

BEIJING: From next year, China will pay all out-of-pocket medical expenses related to childbirth, authorities have said in a bid to turn around the country’s falling birth rate.

The National Healthcare Security Administration of China announced that the country will push to realize full reimbursement for childbirth-related medical treatment covered by policies across the nation by 2026.

These include prenatal checkups, delivery costs, and other approved medical services. In a report issued on Saturday, the administration said that the new move, which takes immediate effect, hopes to make significant improvements in health care coverage of expectant mothers and achieve the goal of “no out-of-pocket expenses” for childbirth.

The policy comes as China continues to grapple with its shrinking population. The country saw its first population decline in decades in 2022 and continued through 2024.

Demographers add that the situation is a warning of further decline due to persistent low birth rates, a shrinking workforce, and a rapidly ageing population, putting an increasing burden on already debt-laden municipalities.

Because of the long-term effect brought about by the one-child policy, which stood in force from 1980-2015, besides rapid urbanization, the birth rate of China has been continuously falling.

Increasing childcare and education expenses, job uncertainty, and economic slowdown have all been discouraging factors for young couples to begin a family.

A number of provinces-including Jilin, Jiangsu, and Shandong-already brought in near-free childbirth policies.

In March, Chinese authorities announced their decision to actively respond to demographic challenges by offering childcare subsidies and making preschool education free.

Previous measures by the government to stimulate births-extended maternity leave, tax incentives, and housing subsidies-have yielded limited results so far.