HONG KONG (Reuters) – A member of China’s prime political advisory physique stated she would suggest permitting single women to entry egg freezing as a measure to protect their fertility after the nation’s inhabitants fell final 12 months for the primary time in six a long time.
Lu Weiying, a member of China’s prime political advisory physique, instructed the state backed World Occasions that she would additionally suggest together with infertility remedies within the public medical health insurance system on the upcoming Chinese language Individuals’s Political Consultative Convention (CPPCC), which kicks off on March 4.
Lu, a fertility physician in China’s southern Hainan province, stated giving single women entry to freezing their eggs permits them “to protect the eggs earlier than they go their peak reproductive years. The girl nonetheless must get married if she needs to make use of her frozen eggs and get pregnant sooner or later,” she instructed the World Occasions.
At present fertility remedies reminiscent of in vitro fertilisation (IVF) and egg freezing in China are banned for single women.
Lu’s suggestions come as authorities attempt to bolster a faltering birth rate with incentives together with increasing maternity go away, monetary and tax advantages for having kids in addition to housing subsidies.
Final 12 months, China recorded its lowest ever birth rate, of 6.77 births per 1,000 folks.
Some provinces have already made adjustments to their guidelines to spice up birth charges. Jilin in northeastern China, which has one of many lowest birth charges within the nation, modified its guidelines in 2002 to allow single women to entry IVF however it has had little affect with the practise nonetheless banned nationally beneath the nation’s Nationwide Well being Fee.
Whereas 9 of the ten most populous nations on the planet are experiencing declines in fertility, China’s 2022 fertility rate of 1.18 was the bottom and properly beneath the two.1 OECD commonplace for a steady inhabitants. China has but to formally launch its fertility information for 2022.
A lot of China’s demographic downturn is the results of China’s one-child coverage imposed between 1980 and 2015 in addition to the excessive value of training.
(Reporting by Farah Grasp; Modifying by Simon Cameron-Moore)
