Sichuan removes marriage as prerequisite for birth registration amid concerns over population drop

The local government of Sichuan has announced that it will allow unmarried individuals to register the births of an unlimited number of children and enjoy parental benefits previously unavailable to them, the latest push to encourage more babies in a country that recently reported an alarming fall in its population.

Sichuan now has about 83 million people, and was the most populous province in China until Chongqing and its environs — inhabited by about 30 million people — were separated from it in order to create an independent province-level municipality in 1997.

Starting on February 15, married couples and any individuals in Sichuan who want to have offspring are allowed to register births with the provincial government. There will be no limit on the number of birth registrations for any parent, the local health commission said in a directive published on its website. 

As part of the initiative, the commision will “simplify” and “enhance information sharing” in its online registry system, enabling users to use digital documents previously obtained by the government to access birth registration services, the commission said. To make the process easier, the commission also encouraged parents to use a program on WeChat to complete registration, and stressed that while parents should register births ahead of time, registrations would be accepted retroactively for births that had already taken place. The new policies will go into effect in about two weeks and be in place for five years.

Until now, Sichuan had allowed only married couples who wanted to have up to two children to register with local authorities. After registration, qualifying couples are eligible for benefits, including maternity insurance, free prenatal screening tests, and paid leave. Under the new policy, these benefits will be extended to unmarried couples and single parents in the province. 

The move comes less than two weeks after China revealed that it had 850,000 fewer people at the end of 2022 than the previous year, marking the first population decline in six decades. According to the National Bureau of Statistics, China’s birth rate fell to a record low of 6.77 births for every 1,000 people in 2022, down from 7.52 in 2021, the lowest level since at least 1978. 

Although some experts say that it’s too soon to call it a demographic crisis and that China still can turn the tide, most reporting on the news has presented a grimmer perspective, with many analysts predicting that the drop will have far-reaching consequences for China’s economy and society as it grapples with a shrinking workforce, depleting pension funds, and an overtaxed healthcare system.

In its official explanation of the new policy, Sichuan’s health authorities said that the new measures were meant to “shift the focus of childbearing registration to childbearing desire and childbearing results,” guiding the fundamental purpose of the program back to “population monitoring and maternal services.” In interviews with domestic media, local officials specifically emphasized that the policy was intended to safeguard the rights of single mothers, not to encourage unmarried people to have babies.

While China’s national reproduction policies do not explicitly ban extramarital births, proof of marriage is often required for parents to access services such as prenatal healthcare and paid maternity leave. Although surveys consistently show that Chinese women are increasingly putting off marriage and opening their minds toward the idea of raising children on their own, single mothers are routinely rejected by the government when they apply for birth certificates for their children. The issue has received heightened attention in recent years as several unwed mothers sued local authorities for not giving their babies hùkǒu 户口, a form of household registration in China that is directly tied to education, healthcare, and other public rights and services. 

Yun Zhou, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Michigan, told The China Project that it’s crucial to note where Sichuan’s policy falls short. “The government response has made clear that only ‘birth registration’ is allowed. The policy change at the moment is not changing how hukou status is regulated,” said Zhou, who researches population policy and gender issues in China. 

To encourage more people to have children, Chinese policymakers have introduced a wide array of measures and legislative changes in recent years. In 2016, the central government relaxed the one-child policy that had been in place for three decades, allowing families to have two children. In 2021, it raised the limit to three. In the meantime, Beijing has launched a variety of incentives and more support for new families, including housing subsidies, tax cuts, and longer parental leave for both mothers and fathers. 

But none of those measures worked, and the policy shift in Sichuan is unlikely to trigger a baby boom, said Yun. “For this policy to be able to incentivize births, it would mean that a significant portion of the population are willing to have children but were just previously unable to do so as unmarried individuals,” she said. “Gendered sexual double standards around marriage and childbearing have remained durable in China. Social and familial norms still very much expect childbearing to happen within the context of heterosexual marriages.”