cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/46691137
- China will impose a 13% value-added tax on contraceptive drugs and devices, including condoms, for the first time in three decades.
- The revision to the Value-Added Tax Law also exempts child-care services, elder-care institutions, disability service providers, and marriage-related services from the tax.
- The changes are part of China’s efforts to reverse plunging birth rates and encourage people to have more children, as the population has shrunk for three consecutive years.
[…]
China will impose a value-added tax on contraceptive drugs and devices — including condoms — for the first time in three decades, its latest bid to reverse plunging birth rates that threaten to further slow its economy.
Under the newly revised Value-Added Tax Law, consumers will pay a 13% levy on items that had been VAT-exempt since 1993, when China enforced a strict one-child policy and actively promoted birth control.
At the same time, the revision carves out new incentives for prospective parents by exempting child-care services — from nurseries to kindergartens — as well as elder-care institutions, disability service providers and marriage-related services. The changes take effect in January.
They reflect a broader policy pivot, as a rapidly aging China shifts from limiting births to encouraging people to have more children. The population has shrunk for three consecutive years, with just 9.54 million births in 2024 — barely half of the 18.8 million registered nearly a decade ago, when the one-child policy was lifted.
[…]
This is some “people aren’t choosing healthy food, so raise the taxes on sugar” shit.
How about building a society and economy where having children doesn’t feel like an overwhelming detriment to the parent’s and child’s well-being?
I got curious and started Googling. Apparently China has VERY recently created a subsidy for parents, and finally begun creating support for early childhood care centers, which have traditionally been apparently prohibitively expensive due to privatization (In MY “Communist” China?). It’s good to see there is some actual social progress being implement alongside the hair-brained capitalist schemes that only serve to do harm to the poorest classes. But hey, fuck the points if it keeps the economy going, right?
If billionaires and politicians would just not be so shit and would invest in education, society, and making things better, birth rates would not be so on the decline.
These are gonna be some well-adjusted, loved babies raised by only the most responsible and financially capable parents.
The US birth rate and china’s birth rate are shockingly similar. I love how we point to their one child policy for their issues while ignoring what both populations are saying. Turns out run away capitalism is too blame. The one child policy doesn’t explain why both populations millennials and gen xers are not interested in even having relationships, let alone having children. Both sets say the same things. Not enough money, too much work, worries about climate, and fear of world conflicts. Both China and US people need to realize both our governments are more likely to role back women’s rights to increase birth rates opposed to emancipating their people.
what they will actually get: a massive surge in STD’s and a public health crisis
also isn’t their (now unreported) youth unemployment rate some shit like 25%?
Hey China is awesome at containing viral outbreaks
