China’s Fertility Crisis: Free Babies, Subsidized Embryos, and the Ghost of the One-Child Policy

Giving money for childbirth and in vitro fertilization, or raising VAT on condoms, will not solve a problem that is moral and cultural.

By Hu Zimo

January 14, 2026

A child in China: Will we see fewer of them in the future? Credits.

In a country where the state once fined you for having a second child, it now begs you to have a third. Welcome to the latest chapter in China’s demographic drama, where the government has gone from population control to population panic.

As of 2026, childbirth in China will be free of out-of-pocket expenses—a policy shift that sounds generous until you realize it’s a desperate attempt to reverse a birthrate collapse that Beijing itself engineered. Meanwhile, local governments are throwing money at in vitro fertilization, offering grants of up to 10,000 yuan for IVF and 3,000 yuan for artificial insemination. Breed, and the Party will pay.

Finally, starting from 1 January, condoms and contraceptives will now be taxed at a 13% VAT rate, reversing the previous exemption that has been in place since China implemented nationwide VAT in 1993.

Similar measures did not work in the past, as the problem is now psychological. After four decades of the one-child policy, the Chinese public has internalized a worldview where children are costly, inconvenient, and—above all—optional. The policy shrank families—and imaginations. It taught generations to see siblings as luxuries and parenthood as a burden. Now, the same state that once celebrated sterilizations and abortions is trying to sell childbirth as a patriotic duty.

The paradox is easy to see. The Party that once boasted of its ability to engineer society now finds itself unable to reprogram the very mentality it created. Fertility clinics are expanding, yes—but so are anxieties about housing, education, and job security. IVF subsidies are growing, but the cost of raising a child remains astronomical. And while childbirth may be free, parenting is anything but.

Demographers warn that these measures are unlikely to work. China’s fertility rate has been falling for years, and the population began shrinking in 2022. The recent uptick in births—attributed to the auspicious Year of the Dragon—is a statistical blip, not a trend. The deeper issue is cultural: a society that has been taught to fear children cannot be bribed into loving them.

When demography was not a problem: children in Imperial China. Credits.

Unless the Party confronts its own role in this catastrophe—unless it admits that the one-child policy was a suicidal act of social engineering—no amount of subsidies will restore the family as a meaningful institution. But such an admission would require ideological humility, and that is not a trait the Chinese Communist Party is known for.

So the state will continue to subsidize embryos while ignoring the emotional and economic realities of parenthood. It will offer free childbirth while refusing to provide free thought. And the people, weary of slogans and suspicious of incentives, will continue to choose the lives they want—quietly, cautiously, and often childlessly.

Source: bitterwinter.org