Calay News
China’s largest online travel agency, Trip.com, has announced that it will provide its employees with a 50,000 yuan ($6,897) payment for each child they have as part of its effort to promote fertility and combat the country’s declining population. The company’s executive chairman, James Liang, suggested that both the government and businesses can play a role in building a fertility-friendly atmosphere.
Trip.com’s program calls for each employee to be paid 10,000 yuan ($1,376) a year for five years for each child born on or after July 1. This program is estimated to cost 1 billion yuan, equivalent to about $138 million.
Liang, who is also a demographer, has proposed that 2% of China’s GDP be spent on boosting fertility and has published a book this year titled ‘Population Strategies: How Population Affects the Economy and Innovation’.
China has experienced a decline in its birth rate and marriage rate since 2017, and in 2022, its population began to decline for the first time in six decades. Demographers warn that this population reduction will affect the country’s economic development by generating an aging workforce and increasing pressure on the public system.
Faced with this situation, the Chinese authorities have taken steps to try to slow the population decline. In 2015, they relaxed the one-child policy by allowing two children, and later, in 2021, they increased the limit to three children due to the continuing decline in the birth rate.In addition, financial stimuli, tax reductions, and property concessions have been implemented to encourage couples and families to have more children.However, these measures have failed to halt the birth rate decline or change entrenched attitudes about the role of women in the household, according to fertility experts in China.
