China lifts the three-child limit in a dramatic policy move.

China lifts the three-child limit in a dramatic policy move.

China said on Monday that married Chinese couples can have up to three children, up from the previous maximum of two, following recent data showing a sharp drop in births in the world's most populous country.

In 2016, Beijing repealed its decades-old one-child policy and replaced it with a two-child restriction in an attempt to mitigate the economic risks posed by an ageing population. However, given the high expense of raising children in Chinese cities, this did not result in a sustained increase in births, a difficulty that still exists today.

Following a politburo meeting chaired by President Xi Jinping, the policy change will be accompanied by "supportive measures, which will be conducive to improving our country's population structure, fulfilling the country's strategy of actively coping with an ageing population," according to the official Xinhua news agency.

"People in today's China are held back not by the two-child limit, but by the astronomically high costs of raising children. Everything adds up quickly: housing, extracurricular activities, food, excursions, and everything else "Reuters spoke with Yifei Li, a sociologist at NYU Shanghai.

"In my opinion, raising the cap is unlikely to sway anyone's calculus in a substantial way."

The two-child policy favoured wealthy couples who already had a child and were "less sensitive to child-rearing expenditures," according to a study published earlier this year by Hangzhou University professors, while driving up the expenses of child care and education and deterring first-time parents.

Su Meizhen, a human resources manager in Beijing who is expecting her third kid, said, "I'm really delighted."

"We won't have to pay the fee, and we'll be able to get a hukou," she explained, referring to an urban residence permit that allows families to obtain perks such as sending their children to public schools in the area.