China set to cover expenses of fertility treatment as birth rate plunges to record low

In the wake of a plummeting birth rate, China has devised a plan to boost its population by handing out fertility treatment to its citizens for free. According to CNN, the country is putting its national insurance scheme to use and is extending coverage to help families bear the costs of conceiving. 

On Friday, the National Healthcare Security Administration announced that it will be exceeding its coverage, which will now consist of assisted reproductive technology (ART) techniques such as vitro fertilization (IVF) and labor analgesia to help reduce pain during childbirth.

Furthermore, in order to “reduce the burden of infertility,” the administration included drugs meant to induce ovulation in its coverage. The move comes after the agency expressed concern over China’s plunging populace, a key challenge that is hindering the country's overall development and growth on top of the COVID-19 crisis. 

Of late, Chinese authorities have desperately exhorted citizens to get married and procreate in an attempt to increase the birth rate, which currently has a downward trajectory. While China’s birth rate has experienced a fall over the years, it recorded its first population decline in over 60 years in 2022. Last year, the overall population dropped by 850,000 compared to 2021, as per  China’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

China's population drops by 850,000 in 2022

In the wake of this, the country’s national health commission laid out several measures, one of them which was the provision of “targeted services to the masses through health education, psychological counselling, traditional Chinese medicine services, drug treatment, surgical treatment, assisted reproductive technology and other means to improve the level of infertility prevention and treatment,” according to The Guardian.

2022 saw China’s population decline to 1.411 billion, with the birth rate also plunging to a record low of 6.77 births per 1,000 people. About 9.56 million infants were born in 2022, compared to 2021, which saw 10.62 million births. The drop in China’s birth rate and ultimately, its population, can be attributed to a number of reasons, including tons of women preferring not to bear kids due to personal or financial constraints, as per Chen Wei, a professor at China's Renmin University.