History has a strange way of surprising persons as well as nations. Today China is forced to offer incentives like free childbirth expenses to be implemented in 2026. Why? Its population has been decreasing with an alarming rate, forcing policy makers to think of incentives to produce more babies. Part of these freebees is the new offer which will cover all out-of-pocket expenses related to childbirth in the year 2026. These expenses include prenatal checkups.

The moves comes as China grapples with ever-decreasing population. Now China keeps company with another Asian giant Japan which too suffering from the same phenomenon. China’s population dropped for the first time in decades in the year 2022 and the slide continued throughout 2024. Not only this, the demographers predict that this trend will continue in the days ahead alarming the Chinese authorities to react with new policy of incentives.

In 1980 when Deng took over he realized that his new economic policy [Get Rich, it is glorious’] will not work unless he has similar new approach to China’s ever-increasing population. Let us look at some statistics. In 1950, China’s population was 54. 40 crores. In 1960 it became 65.48 crore and in 1970 it touched 82.23 crore. Same figure jumped to 98.12........

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