BEIJING – China has announced that it will allow couples to have up to three children, after census data showed a steep decline in birth rates.
China scrapped its decades-old, one-child policy five years ago, replacing it with a two-child limit that has failed to lead to a sustained upsurge in births.
The cost of raising children in cities has deterred many Chinese couples.
The latest move was approved by President Xi Jinping at a meeting of top Communist Party officials.
It 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”, according to Xinhua news agency.
But human rights organisation, Amnesty International said the policy, like its predecessors, was still a violation of sexual and reproductive rights.
(BBC)
