BEIJING: Officials and experts have highlighted the significance of stepping up affordable nursery services as part of efforts to reduce the financial burden on parents raising children and address low fertility rates in the country.
During a meeting held by the China Population Association this week, they called for increasing the number of affordable, government-subsidized nurseries across the nation, as well as training and hiring more professionals in the sector.
Yu Xuejun, deputy head of the National Health Commission, said low fertility is one of the fundamental challenges that China is currently grappling with.
Official data show that the country’s total fertility rate — the number of children born to each woman during their reproductive years — dropped from 1.52 in 2019 to 1.07 in 2022.
“To address the issue, it is essential to reduce the costs of giving birth and raising and educating children, including by establishing an affordable nursery system to help families cope,” he said.
Chen Chen, an official with the commission’s population surveillance and family development department, said that developed countries with a relatively high or stable level of fertility have all invested a great deal of money into developing their nursery industries.
For instance, France offers free nursery services for poor families when their children reach the age of 2. And in the Netherlands, subsidies cover 33 to 96 percent of nursery fees based on families’ income levels. –The Daily Mail-China Daily news exchange item
