Once the world’s most populous country, China is now one of many Asian countries struggling with anemic fertility rates. To try to double the national rate of one child per woman, Beijing is using a new tool: taxes on condoms, birth control pills and other contraceptives.
Since January 1, these items were subject to a 13% value added tax. Meanwhile, services such as childcare and matchmaking remain duty-free.
The move comes after China allocated 90 billion yuan ($12.7 billion) last year for a national child care program offering families a one-time payment of about 3,600 yuan (more than $500) for each child aged three or younger.
I’ve been studying Chinese demographics for nearly 40 years and know that past attempts by the country’s communist government to reverse falling fertility rates through policies encouraging couples to have more children have not worked. I don’t expect these new measures to have much, if any, effect in reversing the decline in the fertility rate to one of the lowest in the world and well below the 2.1 “replacement rate” needed to maintain a stable population.
In many ways, the 13% tax on contraceptives is symbolic. A pack of condoms costs about 50 yuan (about $7) and a month’s worth of birth control pills costs about 130 yuan ($19) on average. The new tax is not a major expense at all, since it only adds a few dollars per month.
Compare that to the average cost of raising a child in China – estimated at around 538,000 yuan (over $77,000) until the age of 18, with the cost much higher in urban areas. A 36-year-old father told the BBC he was not concerned about rising prices. “A box of condoms can cost five yuan more, maybe 10, at most 20. Over a year, that’s only a few hundred yuan, very affordable,” he said.
Pronatalist failures
China is one of several countries to have adopted pronatalist policies to combat low fertility. But they are rarely effective.
The Singapore government has been concerned about the country’s very low fertility rate for around twenty years. He has tried to find ways to boost it through programs such as paid maternity leave, child care subsidies, tax breaks and one-time cash giveaways. Yet Singapore’s fertility rate – currently 1.2 – remains one of the lowest in the world.
The government has even started to limit the building of small one-bedroom apartments in a bid to encourage more ‘family’ homes of two or more bedrooms – anyone with children will appreciate the need for more space, right? Yet even this has failed to bring down the low fertility rate.
The Singaporean government received a helping hand in 2012 from the candy manufacturer Mentos. In a viral ad campaign, the brand called on citizens to celebrate “National Night” with some marital boom-boom while “letting their patriotism explode” – with a corresponding explosion of births expected in nine months. Even with help from the private sector, it would appear difficult to reverse declining fertility rates.
South Korea, the country with the lowest fertility rate in the world – 0.7 – has for at least 20 years offered financial incentives to couples to encourage them to have more children.
It increased the monthly allowance already in place for married couples wishing to become parents. In fact, since 2006, the South Korean government has spent more than $200 billion on programs aimed at increasing the Korean birth rate.
But South Korea’s fertility rate continued to decline, from 1.1 in 2006 to 1.0 in 2017, 0.9 in 2019 and 0.7 in 2024.
Unfavorable headwinds
China’s fate is partly of its own making. For around twenty years, the one-child policy pushed the country to lower fertility rates. It worked, going from over 7.0 in the early 1960s to 1.5 in 2015.
That’s when the government intervened again, abandoning the one-child policy and allowing all couples to have two children. In May 2021, the two-child policy was abandoned in favor of a three-child policy.
The hope was that these changes would lead to a baby boom, leading to a considerable increase in the national fertility rate. However, the fertility rate has continued to decline – to 1.2 in 2021 and 1.0 in 2024.
Although China’s historic programs to reduce fertility rates were successful, they were aided by broader societal changes: These policies were in effect as China modernized and evolved into an industrial, urbanized society.
Its policies aimed at increasing the birth rate are now facing unfavorable societal winds. Modernization has led to better education and work opportunities for women – a factor that pushes many to delay having children.
In fact, most of China’s fertility reduction, particularly since the 1990s, has been voluntary – more the result of modernization than of fertility control policies. Chinese couples are having fewer children due to the higher cost of living and education expenses involved in having more than one child.
Additionally, China is one of the most expensive countries in the world to raise a child, relative to average income. Tuition fees at all levels are higher than in many other countries.
The “low fertility” trap
Another factor to consider is what demographers call the “low fertility trap.” According to this hypothesis, put forward by demographers in the 2000s, once a country’s fertility rate falls below 1.5 or 1.4 – much higher than China’s – it is very difficult to increase it by 0.3 or more.
The argument goes that the decline in fertility to these low levels is largely the result of changes in living standards and increased opportunities for women.
It is therefore unlikely that China’s three-child policy will have any influence on increasing the fertility rate. And all my years of studying China’s demographic trends lead me to believe that making contraceptives slightly more expensive will also have very little effect.
Dudley L. Poston Jr., professor of sociology, Texas A&M University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
