China may adopt three-child policy, hints new stamp

China ended its decades-old one child policy in 2016 and permitted couples to have two children as the population of elderly rose with declining numbers of young people. Now it seems that the Asian giant is all set to adopt a three-child policy as it is struggling with the problems of an ageing population.

Speculations about the three-child policy started after China Post unveiled the Year of the Pig stamp for 2019 showing a happy family of pigs with three piglets. In 2016, just before it announced a two-child policy, the country had released a stamp featuring two baby monkeys.

China had more than 230.8 million people aged 60 or above at the end of 2016, 16.7 per cent of the country's total population, the Ministry of Civil Affairs had said in August 2017.


As per China’s official statistics, though there is a considerable rise in newborns but it has been still less than the desired and optimal number of 20 million.

However, many doubt the efficacy of such a move.

"By removing all restrictions on family planning, China could bring down its expenditure on the subsidies provided for the two-child policy. However, China is now an overwhelmingly middle class society which has gotten used to low fertility rates. It will not be able to ratchet up fertility rates just on state order. Like Western societies, China will be stuck with its ageing problem for a while. Unless it can ramp up migration, unthinkable for a closed society like China," opined the Times of India in an editorial today.