China’s birth rate last year was the highest this century, as the country felt the effect of the end of the controversial one-child policy in 2015.
Births increased by 7.9% in 2016 to 17.86 million, according to China’s National Health and Family Planning Commission. About 45% of babies were born to families that already had one child.
Demographers had described the decision taken in 2015 to allow all families to have two children as “too little, too late” in the fight against a rapidly ageing population.
China’s one-child policy, which began in the 1970s, was responsible for severe rights abuses, including forced abortions and sterilisation, heavy fines for families who violated regulations and compulsory birth control methods such as intrauterine devices.
The deeply unpopular rule also led to a ballooning elderly population, one of the worst gender imbalances in the world and selective abortions of female foetuses.
Officials have said the relaxation of the policy “came in time and worked effectively”, but the increase of 1.31 million newborns last year falls far short of earlier government estimates that China would add 3 million babies annually for the next five years.
The family planning commission expects between 17 and 20 million births a year until 2020. Over that same period the number of women of childbearing age will decline by about 5 million, officials said. The total population is estimated to rise to 1.42 billion by 2020, up from 1.37 billion at the end of 2015.
About 75% of families are unwilling to have a second child because of economic reasons, according to the family planning commission’s own surveys.
While authorities often credit the one-child policy with preventing as many as 400 million births, researchers have said China’s birthrate would have declined naturally regardless of government intervention.
Children born in violation of the one-child policy often lack official documentation and are denied the most basic of social services. They are unable to attend school, lack healthcare and cannot even use the country’s trains.
