China Imposes Contraceptive Tax to Boost Birth Rates

The one-child policy is history. | Wikimedia Commons

China’s one-child policy ended in 2016. Nevertheless, its legacy of forced abortions and sterilization survives in the high male-to-female ratio and general anti-birth sentiment of the population. So it may have still come to the surprise of some when the government announced on December 2 that, starting January 1, it will add a 13% value-added tax (VAT) to contraceptives such as condoms, which have been tax-free since 1993, in a continued attempt to boost the country’s fertility rate. 

After the repeal of the one-child policy, China instituted a two-child goal and then a three-child one in 2021. Earlier this year, it also added an annual subsidy of $500 for each child under three years old. The new contraceptive policy is accompanied by simultaneous VAT exemptions on childcare services. The impetus for this policy reversal can be found in China’s low total fertility rate (TFR), which sits at just one birth per woman. China’s population has already begun declining; the UN projects it to fall by more than half by 2100. This is not just a Chinese phenomenon, either. Across the world, fertility rates have plummeted as countries have modernized. Today, two-thirds of the global population live in countries where the TFR “is below the ‘replacement rate’ of 2.1—the standard estimate of what is needed to maintain a stable population.” Accordingly, it is not just rich Western countries, but increasingly, aging Asian ones, that are pushing their women to have more children. World Population Review estimates that 55 countries possessed explicitly pronatalist policy from 2015-2019. European countries accounted for half of those, but another 20 were Asian (including Russia and Turkey).

Some experts think this policy will fail to achieve its intended effects. China’s TFR has not crept back up in the decade following the reversal of one-child. Many countries implementing benefits for giving birth are yet to see their investments bear fruit (or children, for that matter). Hungary spends 5.5% of its GDP annually on pronatalist subsidies and tax breaks; its TFR has barely budged in response. Singapore’s and Japan’s generous policies have done nothing to halt their respective precipitous drops in TFR. The simplest explanation is that it’s difficult to get people to give birth. For such a life-altering decision, cultural factors are probably more important than economic incentives. World fertility rates are much lower than in the past primarily because of modernization and female empowerment. More women have been able to focus on their education and careers, choosing to delay or even reject having children. Historically, a strong negative relationship exists between global fertility and female labor force participation rates. In fact, just as China’s newfound affair with pronatalism seems to be unsuccessful so far, some have invoked the similar experiences of neighboring countries with far less draconian antinatalist measures to argue that one-child actually had very little impact on reducing births. And although the Chinese government attributes 400 million fewer births to the policy, scholars have noted that the biggest drop in TFR came in the decade preceding the imposition of one-child in 1979: it fell from 5.7 in 1969 to just 2.7 in 1978 during a period of more moderate family planning.

Likewise, China’s pronatalist U-turn has largely proved ineffective. In 2021, after the government “introduced a mandatory ‘cooling-off’ period for divorcing couples,” “divorces fell from 4.34 million in 2020 to 2.84 million in 2021, but then climbed back to 3.51 million in 2024, with a further 6% year-on-year increase in the first three quarters of 2025.” These numbers indicate that even if a new scheme succeeds initially, cultural norms assert themselves more strongly over the long-term. The outcome of the divorce policy suggests that the new contraceptive tax is similarly unlikely to change attitudes. Contraception is extremely prevalent in China, partly as a result of the government strongly advocating for it in the last half-century. The strangest aspect of China’s about-face can be seen in government propaganda, which now maintains that pregnancy enhances intelligence, after decades of falsely claiming the opposite. Chinese women who grew up during one-child may be surprised to learn how quickly and conclusively science has overturned what was recently an undisputable fact.

This last detail points to some of the most concerning details of the worldwide pronatalist push. Just as harsh family planning policies came with human rights violations, so too do pro-birthing movements. China’s new contraceptive tax has angered some youngsters who worry about the high rate of sexually-transmitted diseases, which have been on the uptick in recent years. But for the government, the end goal can be its only benchmark for success. Only one rate matters.

Other rights have found themselves sacrificed to the altar of higher fertility rates. In November, China pressured Apple into taking down two of its most used gay dating apps in the country, presumably for the lack of offspring produced by gay marriages. Autocratic countries in particular across the world are receiving criticism for their selective approaches to pronatalism. China’s return to promoting childbirth isn’t yet a nationwide phenomenon; some provinces provide far more enticing incentives than others. A mark of the past can still be found in the autonomous region of Xinjiang, where China continues to forcibly sterilize the minority Uyghur population in the northwest. In Europe, Hungary’s benefits are only offered to high-income, opposite-sex couples. Demographic engineering occurs everywhere, even in democracies. Spain prefers to let in Spanish-speaking immigrants over those who speak other languages. The United States has stopped granting asylum to most refugees besides white South Africans, who are apparently facing a “genocide.” Globally, right-wing conspiracists spread the “great replacement theory,” which argues that Western countries are losing their culture due to an influx of nonwhite immigrants. Though birth rate policy may not appear as directly racial or ethnic as immigration policy, the two can clearly work in conjunction to achieve certain demographic and political goals. The patriotic fervor of jingoists can also be seen in pro-birth circles. For example, in June, in pursuit of a higher population, Russia began paying schoolgirls to get pregnant. It also recently reintroduced the Stalin-era “Mother Heroine” award for women who birth 10 children in less than 10 years. Across the world, nativism and natalism are now going hand in hand.