China allows couple to have three children

China on Friday formally revised a law to allow couples to have three children in an attempt to boost falling birth rates.

The amendment to the Population and Family Planning Law was passed at a session of the National People’s Congress, China’s parliament, and rolled out measures including tax breaks to encourage couples to have more children.

The amendment formally reverses China’s long-time policy of allowing most couples only one child.

In 2016, Beijing had scrapped its decades-old one-child policy to replace it with a two-child limit, which, however, had failed to lead to the expected upsurge in births.

China introduced the strictly implemented one-child policy in the late 1970s, which, estimates say, resulted in hundreds of millions of fewer births but left Beijing facing the problems of a rapidly greying society.

The amended law includes measures to provide affordable nursing services, and also to reduce the cost of births and education of children, such as allowing tax deductions.

The measures include cancelling the “social maintenance fee”, which was a financial penalty couples paid for having children beyond the limit.

The government will also encourage local governments to offer parental leave, increasing women’s employment rights and improving childcare infrastructure.