Comment China’s National Health Commission announced on Tuesday that it will take steps to reduce the number of abortions in the country – Beijing’s effort to tackle low birth rates and stagnant population growth. According to new guidelines posted on the state commission’s website, officials plan to offer incentives to encourage family growth, including expanding access to child care services, lowering the cost of kindergarten and partnering with employers. to make offices more “family friendly”. .” The government is also committed to making infertility treatment more widely available to married women by including reproductive technology in the country’s national medical system. In China, unmarried women are not allowed to freeze their eggs and undergo IVF, and are routinely denied the care and services provided to married women. Tuesday’s announcement comes as China continues to face a demographic downturn – a hangover from the country’s one-child policy, which from 1979 to 2015 was used to lower birth rates while the country experienced a population boom. Abortion, which is legal in China, played a role in upholding the policy. According to the Guttmacher Institute, China has one of the highest abortion rates in the world. From 2015 to 2019, the country recorded 40,200,000 pregnancies annually — 23.2 million of which were unintended and 17.7 million of which resulted in abortion. Data shows that about 78 percent of unintended pregnancies in China end in abortion. The global average of unintended pregnancies resulting in abortion is 61 percent. The importance of family name transmission and the preference for sons also contributed to China’s abortion rate, skewing the country’s population by gender. A 2021 population census showed that the country has 35 million more men than women. In 2016, the Chinese government changed its policy to allow married couples to have two children. In 2021, the number increased to three. But despite these changes, recent birth figures released by China’s National Bureau of Statistics show a “plunge” in births since 2016 – suggesting a paradox in the country at a time when the government has been giving families more flexibility. China’s low birth rates have led to the inevitable: a growing share of the elderly population. Demographic data compiled by the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs show that the country is expected to shrink by 2025. Tuesday’s proposal would strengthen and provide women with a “positive childbearing support system” and improve services to promote “long-term” and “balanced” population growth in the country. This is not the first time China has introduced incentives for couples to have children. Authorities have proposed tax cuts, longer maternity leave, better health insurance and financial support for families with three children, Reuters reported. Tuesday’s announcement echoes a 2021 proposal to restrict abortion under the guise of promoting gender equality. Last year, the Chinese government issued a policy note to improve women’s rights over the next decade, which included provisions to give women greater access to education and employment. Under a section on reproductive health, officials wrote that women will receive guidance on navigating the health care system, including accessing contraception. Although abortion was not explicitly described in the briefing, the memo emphasized the need to reduce the number of unintended pregnancies.
