A Chinese company, Trip.com, announced on Friday the launch of a fertility subsidy program aimed at encouraging its employees to have more children. Under the program, employees who have been working at the company for over three years will be eligible to receive up to 50,000 yuan ($6,887) for each newborn baby. The move comes as China grapples with a falling birth rate, which resulted in its population shrinking in 2022 for the first time in over 60 years.
The fertility subsidy program will take effect from July 1, 2023, and will be applicable to all global employees, irrespective of gender, according to Trip.com, an online travel platform. Employees who have a newborn baby will receive a cash subsidy of 10,000 yuan per year until their children reach the age of five.
Trip.com plans to invest 1 billion yuan in birth subsidies in the future. In 2022, the company experienced a 147% growth rate in the number of newborn families among its employees, while birth rates for second children increased by 329%.
These measures by Trip.com align with the Chinese government’s efforts to create a more fertility-friendly society and boost the country’s birth rate. Authorities have implemented various supportive measures in finance, tax, housing, employment, education, and other fields.
According to a report from the YuWa Population Research think tank, if China implements effective policies to encourage birth rates, the number of newborn babies could surpass 10 million by 2030, with the total population expected to reach 1.29 billion in 2050. YuWa Population Research was established by a group of demographers and economists, including Liang Jianzhang, the co-founder of Trip.com and an economics professor at Peking University.
In May, the China Family Planning Association announced plans to launch pilot projects in 20 cities to cultivate a new-era marriage and childbearing culture, aiming to address barriers preventing couples from having more children.
China’s population experienced negative growth in 2022, declining by 850,000 compared to the previous year, as reported by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) in January. The mainland saw a record low of 9.56 million births in 2022, the lowest since 1949.