China’s ruling Communist Party has said it will ease birth limits to allow all couples to have three children instead of two in the hopes of slowing the rapid ageing of its population, which is adding to strains on the economy and society.
The ruling party has enforced birth limits since 1980 to restrain population growth but worries the number of working age people is falling too fast while the share over the age of 65 is rising.
That threatens to disrupt its ambitions to transform China into a prosperous consumer society and global technology leader.
A meeting of the party’s Politburo decided “China will introduce major policies and measures to actively deal with the ageing population”, the Xinhua News Agency said.
A ruling party meeting led by President Xi Jinping decided to introduce “measures to actively deal with the ageing population”, the official Xinhua News Agency said.
It said they agreed that “implementing the policy of one couple can have three children and supporting measures are conducive to improving China’s population structure”.
