China's battles to boost population

China's demographic desperation underlines its decision to tax birth control products. Its new three decades ago to contraceptives and removes the tax on childcare and marriage services.

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Over the past few years, the Chinese State has been scrambling to undo the disastrous effects of its one-child policy, adopted in 1979 and junked in 2015 (capping the number of children per couple was entirely done away with only in 2021). Thanks to a raft of coercive measures such as fines, registration limits, etc, the country's birth rate spiralled downwards quickly, reaching 6.77 births per 1,000 population in 2024 from 17.8 in 1979. The total fertility rate, at one child per woman, is now less than half of the replacement rate (2.1). The signs