China is expanding child-care subsidies, nursery capacity and pediatric services under its new five-year plan as the country confronts record-low births, a shrinking population and the long-term effects of decades of birth restrictions.

By yourNEWS Media Newsroom

China is preparing a broader government effort to make raising children less expensive and more practical for working families as the country attempts to reverse a prolonged decline in births that pushed the number of babies born in 2025 below 8 million.

National Health Commission Director Lei Haichao outlined the measures Monday during a State Council Information Office event, saying authorities will expand affordable child care, pediatric medical services and financial support for families during the country’s 15th Five-Year Plan, which covers 2026 through 2030.

The national plan calls for building what the government describes as a “birth-friendly society,” reducing the costs of pregnancy, child-rearing and education and attempting to stabilize the number of newborns. China’s legislature has also outlined expanded maternity insurance, additional public child-care slots, support for employer and community nurseries and assistance for families with multiple children.

“In detail, Lei mentioned that the initiative supports communities and employers in setting up child care service institutions, enabling residents to access nearby, convenient, and reasonably affordable child care services,” the state-run Global Times reported.

“Raising the enrollment rate for child care will effectively lower family costs related to childbirth, child-rearing, and education,” Lei said, according to the newspaper.

The government intends to increase enrollment among children under 3 in nursery care by 6 percentage points during the five-year period.

China has already introduced a nationwide child-care subsidy of 3,600 yuan per year for each child younger than 3, equivalent to roughly $500 at current exchange rates. The payments are tax-free and can continue until a child reaches age 3.

More than 25 million infants and toddlers had received subsidies for 2026 as of August, while approximately 24 million kindergarten children had benefited from a separate policy eliminating certain fees for the final year of kindergarten, according to Chinese government figures.

Pediatric health care is another major part of the initiative.

Lei said China intends to add pediatric services at 1,000 additional community-level medical institutions by the end of 2026.

“By the end of the year, over 95 percent of township health centers and community health service centers are expected to provide pediatric services,” the Global Times reported, paraphrasing Lei.

More than 3,000 pediatricians have already been dispatched from larger hospitals to community medical facilities, according to official figures.

The expansion comes as China adjusts services to a population structure that has changed substantially since the government spent decades trying to restrict births.

China’s one-child policy was introduced in 1979, after Mao Zedong’s death and during the Deng Xiaoping era, rather than during Mao’s rule. Enforcement varied by location and over time, but historical research has documented coercive abortions and sterilizations during some enforcement campaigns.

China began dismantling the one-child system in 2015, moved to a nationwide two-child policy and later allowed three children as officials increasingly confronted declining fertility and an aging population.

Relaxing the legal limits did not produce the sustained rebound policymakers sought.

China’s population has now declined for four consecutive years.

Official National Bureau of Statistics figures show the country ended 2025 with 1.40489 billion people, 3.39 million fewer than a year earlier.

Only 7.92 million babies were born during the year, down approximately 17% from 2024. The birth rate fell to 5.63 births per 1,000 people, while 11.31 million people died.

The population decline has continued even though China remains one of the largest countries in the world by population.

India overtook China in 2023 as the world’s most populous nation, a demographic crossover covered at the time by NBC News and projected by the United Nations.

China also faces a longstanding imbalance between men and women that developed during the decades of restrictive birth policies and strong cultural preferences for sons.

Official 2025 statistics counted 716.85 million males and 688.04 million females, a difference of about 28.8 million. Other demographic estimates have placed the excess male population around 30 million or more, depending on the year and age groups examined. A Council on Foreign Relations analysis has examined how birth-control policies affected women and contributed to those demographic distortions.

Research published in the BMJ found that sex-selective abortion accounted for most of the unusually high male-to-female ratio among younger Chinese populations studied in the 2000s.

The researchers found more than 32 million excess males under age 20 in 2005 and concluded that sex-selective abortion was a principal factor. Female abandonment and infanticide were also historically associated with the one-child period, though researchers noted that infanticide had become comparatively rare by the period they examined.

The demographic imbalance now intersects with another problem for policymakers: fewer young adults are marrying.

High housing costs, education expenses, employment uncertainty, demanding work schedules and the costs associated with raising children have all been identified as factors discouraging marriage and parenthood.

Chinese authorities have responded with a growing combination of subsidies, medical support, marriage promotion and child-care programs.

Lei sought Monday to emphasize that population decline did not mean China faced an immediate shortage of workers.

“Compared with other developed and developing countries, the number of nations with this level of births is still very small, so China will still have a relatively ample labor force in the future,” Lei said.

China had approximately 851.36 million people between ages 16 and 59 at the end of 2025, representing 60.6% of the population, according to official data.

“With a population currently standing at 1.405 billion, China is expected to maintain its status among the world’s most populous nations for a long time to come,” Lei said, according to the Global Times. “With more than 10 million students enrolling in colleges and universities each year, the nation maintains a robust supply of high-caliber talent to drive economic growth.”

His emphasis on China’s remaining labor pool contrasts with warnings issued by demographers as the country’s population decline began.

In 2022, demographer Huang Wenzheng was quoted as saying that low fertility would “be the dominant trend” in China “for a long time” and that continued population contraction would be difficult to avoid.

The effects are already visible in industries built around young children.

Falling enrollment has forced some kindergarten operators to close, consolidate or look for other uses for their properties.

A 2024 report highlighted Chinese media accounts of early-childhood facilities being converted into eldercare centers as the population simultaneously produced fewer children and more senior citizens.

The number of children enrolled in kindergarten declined by approximately 5.35 million in 2023 compared with the previous year, according to the report.

The simultaneous decline in children and increase in elderly residents illustrates the demographic pressures confronting Beijing.

At the end of 2025, China had 323.38 million residents age 60 or older, representing 23% of the population. More than 223 million were 65 or older.

The government’s latest strategy therefore combines policies aimed at increasing births with preparations for an aging society.

Officials are expanding nursery care while also increasing eldercare capacity, maternity coverage, reproductive health services and community medical programs.

China’s efforts to encourage childbirth have not always been limited to financial incentives.

Women in several regions reported in 2024 that local officials had contacted them to ask about pregnancy plans and, in some cases, their menstrual cycles. Reporting at the time described government workers making calls or home visits as authorities promoted what Beijing called a new marriage and childbearing culture.

Social-media complaints described some of the questioning as intrusive.

Those reports came as the National Health Commission separately launched a fertility survey covering 30,000 people in 150 counties and 1,500 communities to examine why Chinese citizens were reluctant to have children.

The government’s current approach places greater emphasis on reducing the economic burdens associated with parenthood.

China’s five-year plan calls for expanding maternity insurance, increasing reimbursement for prenatal care, promoting assisted reproductive services, encouraging flexible work for parents of children younger than 3 and giving families with multiple children additional consideration in education and housing policies.

Officials have also begun eliminating some kindergarten charges and increasing public spending on nursery care.

The objective, according to the plan, is to lower the combined costs of having, raising and educating children sufficiently to “stabilize the number of newborns.”

Whether those measures can significantly alter China’s demographic trajectory remains uncertain.

Births have continued falling despite the end of the one-child restriction, permission for larger families and years of increasingly explicit government encouragement of marriage and parenthood.

The country nevertheless retains a population above 1.4 billion and a working-age population exceeding 850 million, which is the basis for Lei’s argument that China still has a large labor supply even while the longer-term demographic trend moves downward.

The 15th Five-Year Plan marks an expansion of Beijing’s response: rather than merely allowing families to have more children, the government is increasingly spending money and reorganizing public services in an effort to make having them less costly.

Original article