China’s 3-Child Policy Far From Reality, Middle-Class Mother’s Parenting Expenses Show

Mask-clad students conduct last-minute studying before sitting for the second day of the National College Entrance Examination (NCEE), known as "gaokao", in Beijing on July 8, 2020. According to “China’s 2020 Fertility Report” published by the Evergrande Research Institute, on average, education was 32.44 percent of the total expenditure for Chinese families in 2020, showing a rising trend. Photo by WANG ZHAO/AFP via Getty Images

Despite the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) recent introduction of a three-child policy to counter the country’s aging population, most families are unlikely to have two children, let alone a third child, due to the high costs of raising a child in China.

The CCP’s Health Commission stated on May 31 that “after it introduced the two-child policy, a large portion of families still decided not to give birth despite wanting another baby.”