China is significantly expanding childcare subsidies amid mounting concerns over the country’s steadily declining birth rate, the Ministry of Finance said Tuesday.
The central government will allocate 99.9 billion yuan ($13.9 billion) for local government initiatives supporting care for young children, a 10.6 percent increase from last year, the ministry said.
The funding will bring total childcare subsidies to about 110 billion yuan ($15.3 billion), according to ministry estimates. It added that the distribution of subsidies has proceeded “smoothly and orderly” so far this year.
More than two-thirds of the world’s population now live in countries with fertility rates below the replacement level of 2.1 births per woman.
China’s fertility rate is among the world’s lowest despite Beijing’s abandonment of its decades-old one-child policy and a raft of pronatalist measures. The fertility rate is estimated to have fallen to around 0.97 births per woman in 2025, down from roughly 1.02 in 2024.
The decline has fueled concerns among policymakers that a shrinking population, coupled with a rapidly aging workforce, will weigh on growth in the world’s second-largest economy.
This is a developing story. It will be updated with additional information.
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