News Beat
Huge tax rise is slapped on condoms and contraceptives in desperate bid to tackle plummeting birth rate in China
CHINA has hiked up the prices of condoms and other contraceptives amid plummeting birth rates in the world’s second most populated country.
An extra 13 per cent value-added tax has been slapped onto contraception, after Beijing removed an exemption on the products from January 1.
Despite the tax-increase on birth control methods, residents of Beijing and experts say the ploy will have little impact.
Childcare and marriage brokerage services have been made exempt from the tax increase.
The attempt to boost the country’s sinking birth rate has come while government concerns escalate over the rapidly ageing and shrinking population, coupled with record low marriage rates.
Young people in Beijing have said the extra tax on contraception didn’t address the root issues stopping them from having children, according to AFP.
“The immense pressure on young people in China today — from employment to daily life — has absolutely nothing to do with condoms,” a resident in her thirties, who wanted to be known only as Jessica, told the outlet.
“The rich are too rich, and the poor remain poor… [and people] lack confidence in their future, so they may be unwilling to have children.”
Xu Wanting, 33, said she did not believe the tax would directly increase birth rates.
“Those who truly need to buy these products will still buy them, because these are family planning products,” Xu told EuroNews.
“[Condoms] are not solely for contraception, but also concern women’s reproductive health.”
The Chinese population has been in rapid decline over the past three years.
The population is also at risk of falling from the present 1.4 billion to 633 million by 2100, according to the UN.
Xi Jinping and other Chinese leaders have promised to address the country’s demographic issues.
At a key economic policy meeting in December, the leaders vowed to “advocate positive views on marriage and childbearing, and strive to stabilise the number of new births” in 2026, according to local media.
Alfred Wu – an associate professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in Singapore – said a contraception tax was inconsequential in comparison with the cost of raising a child.
“Young couples deciding whether to have children are not calculating whether they can afford extra dollars for contraception — they are asking whether they can afford to raise a child at all in an environment of economic uncertainty,” he said.
According to Wu, young couples in China face “concrete obstacles”, including a weak job market, “prohibitive” housing costs, a stressful work culture and workplace discrimination against women.
The contraception tax increase has come after parents were offered an extra $2,700 to have more kids.
As the country continues to grapple with the disastrous impact of its one-child policy, 17.7million residents in the city of Shenzhen – China’s third most populous city – will be offered cash to start a family.
Under the plans, parents will be given $1,200 for having a baby – and an extra $1,700 and $3,100 if they have a second and third child.
