At a State Council Information Office press briefing on September 14, part of a series on "starting off the 15th Five-Year Plan," National Health Commission Deputy Director Guo Yanhong, Director Lei Haitao and other officials said that during the 2026-2030 plan period, China will accelerate the improvement of its fertility-support policy system, strengthen the guarantee system for maternity and childrearing services, and foster a more birth-friendly environment to promote high-quality population development. Officials noted that the childcare subsidy system in effect since 2025 has already benefited more than 30 million families, easing household burdens tied to childbirth, childrearing and education. The announcement was widely reported by Chinese media between September 14 and 15, and was read as an important signal of the direction of China's population policy in the coming five years. The briefing was one in a series the State Council Information Office has held on different policy areas of the 15th Five-Year Plan, following earlier sessions on the economy, technology and ecology; population and health were scheduled for a dedicated briefing in mid-September, underscoring their prominence within the overall plan.

Official data show China's fertility-support system has made some progress in recent years. Since January 1, 2025, families have been able to claim an annual childcare subsidy of 3,600 yuan for every child under age three — regardless of whether it is a first, second or third child — until the child turns three, marking the first time since the founding of the People's Republic that a universal, direct cash welfare subsidy has been distributed nationwide to the public. In 2026, the central government allocated roughly 99.9 billion yuan specifically for this program. At the same time, since January 1, 2025, all 31 provincial-level administrative regions plus the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps have brought appropriate assisted-reproduction procedures into basic medical insurance reimbursement. In the first half of 2026, insurance-supported assisted-reproduction visits nationwide topped 1.7 million, and China's National Healthcare Security Administration estimates the policy will help produce roughly 300,000 additional births per year.

Looking ahead to the 15th Five-Year Plan period, National Health Commission officials outlined further policy directions: first, deepening implementation of the childcare subsidy system and allowing localities to raise subsidy standards according to their fiscal capacity; second, exploring a tiered subsidy for multi-child families, where the subsidy grows with each additional child; third, optimizing personal income tax deductions related to childbirth and childrearing to ease household tax burdens; fourth, exploring preferential housing provident fund policies for multi-child families, including home-purchase subsidies and rental preferences; and fifth, vigorously developing inclusive, affordable childcare services and promoting integrated childcare-and-preschool systems, with a target of raising the enrollment rate for children under three by six percentage points from current levels by 2030. Officials described these measures collectively as a "cost-sharing" mechanism covering the full chain from childbirth and childrearing to education, healthcare and housing.

On maternal and child health, the commission also set specific quantitative targets: by 2030, the national maternal mortality rate is to fall below 12 per 100,000 live births, and the infant mortality rate is to fall below 3.5 per 1,000. Authorities will also deepen efforts to prevent and control birth defects, strengthen pre-pregnancy and early-pregnancy checkups along with prenatal screening and diagnosis, and improve the capacity to treat critical maternal and newborn cases, in order to raise the overall level of maternal and child health services. Analysts say that folding fertility support together with maternal-and-child health services and reproductive-care coverage into a single policy framework reflects official recognition that cash subsidies alone cannot fundamentally reverse depressed fertility intentions, and that medical and caregiving costs tied to pregnancy and childrearing also need to come down.

This suite of policies is directly tied to China's continuing decline in births. According to the National Bureau of Statistics, China recorded 7.92 million births in 2025, a birth rate of 5.63 per thousand, down from 9.54 million in 2024 — a drop of about 1.62 million, or nearly 17 percent. By the end of 2025, the natural population growth rate had fallen to -2.41 per thousand, and the share of people aged 65 and older reached 15.9 percent, narrowing the gap with the share of children aged 0 to 15 (16.4 percent) to just 0.5 percentage points. Demographers broadly agree that the continued decline in births will not only accelerate the aging of China's population structure, but will also place long-term pressure on future labor supply, the pension system and the sustainability of healthcare — the direct backdrop against which authorities have elevated fertility support to a priority task for the 15th Five-Year Plan.

It is worth noting that the reference in official communications to "ensuring China continues to hold its position as the world's most populous country" diverges clearly from the latest United Nations population data, as the actual situation has already changed. According to the UN Population Division's World Population Prospects, India officially overtook China as the world's most populous country in 2023. As of 2026, the UN estimates China's population at roughly 1.403 billion, while India's has grown to roughly 1.48 billion; together the two countries account for nearly 35 percent of the world's roughly 8.2 billion people. UN projections show this gap widening further: by 2050, China's population is projected to shrink by more than 10 percent to about 1.26 billion, while India's is projected to grow to about 1.69 billion, keeping it in the world's top spot. In other words, China is now the world's second most populous country, not the first — and the continuing decline in births is itself the central reason for that shift in ranking, underscoring, from another angle, the urgency behind the fertility-support policies officials are now pushing.

In terms of policy evolution, this 15th Five-Year Plan fertility-support framework continues a series of population-policy adjustments China has made in recent years. In 2021, China shifted from its "universal two-child" policy to a "three-child policy," accompanied by measures to ease family burdens around childbirth, childrearing and education. Since then, localities across the country have progressively rolled out incentives such as marriage and childbirth subsidies and housing discounts; financial media tallies show multiple provinces and cities now offer local incentives such as marriage-registration bonuses and birth allowances: cities in Zhejiang such as Hangzhou, Ningbo and Yiwu give newlyweds 1,000-yuan consumption vouchers; Wuhu in Anhui offers vouchers worth 2,000 to 10,000 yuan depending on spending; some areas in Guangdong offer newlywed cash bonuses ranging from 2,500 yuan up to as much as 80,000 yuan; Mingxi County in Fujian's Sanming city pays a 3,000-yuan bonus to couples who complete marriage registration and premarital health checks, plus birth subsidies of 2,000 to 5,000 yuan for a first, second or third child; and Lüliang in Shanxi has, since January 1, 2025, handed newlyweds a 1,500-yuan cash bonus on the spot at marriage-registration counters, disbursing more than 17 million yuan in its first seven months. Analysts say the shift from an early focus on loosening limits on the number of children to today's comprehensive support system — offering real cash subsidies, expanded medical coverage, and housing and tax benefits — signals that the focus of China's population policy has moved from "controlling births" to "encouraging births," with a more diversified set of policy tools.

Still, several demographers caution that international experience offers a note of restraint: developed economies such as South Korea and Japan have long offered substantial birth subsidies, parental leave and childcare services, yet their birth rates have remained persistently low — suggesting economic incentives have their limits in lifting fertility intentions, with deeper structural pressures from housing, education and job competition, as well as shifting attitudes toward marriage and childbearing among young people, also at play. As of this report, the National Health Commission has not disclosed the specific budget scale for fertility-support policy during the 15th Five-Year Plan, how costs will be shared with local governments, or a timetable for detailed implementing rules, which are expected to be spelled out in subsequent documents. Analysts broadly agree that whether China can truly reverse its sustained decline in births will depend not only on the scale of subsidies, but also on whether the overall costs of childrearing, education and housing fall in tandem.