China has launched sweeping financial incentives to boost marriages and childbirth as the country struggles with a severe population decline. Provinces and cities are offering wedding subsidies, housing grants, and large child-rearing payments in a dramatic policy shift.
Zhejiang province is among the latest to offer wedding vouchers worth up to 1,000 yuan (£100). Ningbo and Hangzhou will give the subsidies on a first-come, first-served basis.
Several regions have gone further, earning the label “baby cities.”
Tianmen in Hubei province leads the push. The city recorded a 17% rise in births this year.
Families with three children can now receive up to 220,000 yuan (£23,000) in subsidies and housing benefits, one of China’s highest support packages.
China’s demographic crisis is widely linked to its former one-child policy, enforced for 35 years. The policy caused a fast-aging population, a shrinking workforce, and a gender imbalance of about 40 million more men than women. Although China ended the policy in 2015, the birth rate has continued to fall.
Young women remain reluctant to have children. Surveys show that almost 40% of female university students do not want children.
Many cite high costs, workplace pressure, economic uncertainty, and the burden of caring for aging parents.
Beijing launched a national child benefit this year, offering 3,600 yuan (£380) annually for each child under three. But local governments carry most of the responsibility for boosting births, resulting in uneven and sometimes intrusive measures.
Women in several provinces reported unwanted calls from officials asking about menstrual cycles and pregnancy plans.
Some regions now focus on marriage incentives instead. Tianmen offers a 120,000-yuan housing subsidy, higher maternity benefits, and a 60,000-yuan marriage bonus for couples who register locally.
China has also scrapped rules that forced couples to marry only in their registered hometowns.
Despite these steps, marriage rates continue to fall. China recorded 6.1 million marriages in 2024, down from 7.7 million the previous year and more than 13 million a decade ago.
President Xi Jinping is expected to closely monitor the rising cost of these programs. It remains unclear whether financial incentives alone can reverse China’s declining birth trend or shift social attitudes already deeply rooted among younger generations.
Nothing wrong with that. Their population increased by a huge margin. Now they achieved the demographic reduction they wanted
Now they can have people have kids.
But that depends on affordability.
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