China has announced it will allow couples to have up to three children after census data showed a sharp drop in birth rates.
In 2016, China scrapped its decades-old one-child policy, replacing it with a two-child limit, but even that figure has apparently failed to lead to a sustained rise in births.
The BBC reports that the cost of raising children in cities has deterred many Chinese couples. While the latest measure was approved by President Xi Jinping at a meeting of senior Communist Party officials.
According to the Xinhua news agency, it will come with "supporting measures, which will be favorable for the improvement of the population structure of our country, fulfilling the country's strategy to actively cope with an aging population and to maintain the advantage, the donation of human resources", reports the BBC.
But the human rights organization "Amnesty International" said that this was still a violation of sexual and reproductive rights.
"Governments have no business regulating how many children people have. China should instead respect people's life choices and end any invasive and punitive controls on people's family planning decisions,” said China group team leader Joshua Rosenzweig.
"If the softening of the birth policy was effective, the current two-child policy should have proven to be effective as well." Hao Zhou, a senior economist at Commerzbank, told the News Agency. /Adapted from BBC ABOUT labyrinth
