China Gives 30 Days Paid Marriage Leave to Increase Birth Rate

VIVA – Some Chinese provinces are giving young newlyweds 30 days of paid leave to increase the birth rate, according to the Communist Party mouthpiece People's Daily Health on Tuesday. China’s minimum paid marriage leave is three days, but provinces have been able to set their own more generous allowances since February.

The northwestern province of Gansu and the coal-producing province of Shanxi now give 30 days, while Shanghai gives 10 and Sichuan still only three, according to the People's Daily Health.

"Extending marriage leave is one of the effective ways of increasing the fertility rate,” said Yang Haiyang, dean of the Social Development Research Institute of the Southwestern University of Finance and Economics.

According to Yang, quoted by the People's Daily newspaper, the extension of marriage leave is mostly implemented in areas where economic growth is still slow. Yang said several other supporting policies are still needed, such as housing subsidies and paid leave for new fathers.

By 2022, China's population will fall for the first time in six decades, according to official data. The data predicts that the decline in China's population will last for a long time.

Last year, China recorded its lowest birth rate ever recorded, at 6.77 births per 1,000 people. The biggest factor in China's population decline is the one-child policy enforced from 1980 to 2015. Soaring education costs have also encouraged Chinese citizens not to have more than one child, or even not to have one at all.

Family planning expert Wang Pei'an thinks China should increase incentives for people who want to start a family and increase the birth rate because the population is currently declining. According to Wang, the population decline could threaten the world's second-largest economy.