China has expanded the number of children married couples can have to three. Home to nearly 1.4 billion people or more than one billion more people than the US the country is anxious about its future. Under its current demographic trajectory, China’s labor force is shrinking, numbers which concern economists and government officials.
China first began to regulate its population in the late 1970s, under what become known as the one-child policy, although two-child exceptions were made to ethnic minorities and Han families in rural areas who had daughters first. In 2015, the government began to allow all families to have two children. Despite these changes to the law, births have fallen for four years in a row. And many share similar concerns about the lack of family leave and cost of daycare that American families do. In its announcement, the Communist party pledged to improve maternity leave and workplace protections for married couples seeking more children.