China allows couples to have up to three children in policy shift

Prior to this policy shift, couple were fined 130,000 yuan, about $20,400, for going over the birth limit. The one-child policy was implemented in 1979. Population growth slowed down, while sex-selective abortions, as well as coerced sterilizations, increased.

Adoption also became prevalent, as couples who had more children than the government allowed were forced to give them up. This especially impacted little girls.

The population in China, as it is in much of the developed world, is aging. This poses dire economic consequences when there are less young people to support the older population. This is what led to China's lifting the ban on couples having more than one child. But that 2016 effort has not had the desired result, according to Reuters.

Chinese women have a fertility rate of 1.3 children, which does not meet the replacement rate of 2.1. A poll on social media platform Weibo asked #AreYouReady, and responses from 29,000 of the 31,000 who took the survey said they would "never think about" have three children.

This new change, Xinhua news agency reported, brings along with it "supportive measures, which will be conducive to improving our country's population structure, fulfilling the country's strategy of actively coping with an aging [sic] population."

Some of those plans include the government reducing the cost of education, which has been a difficulty for families. There will be additional help with housing, taxes, support for women who work, as well as social education programs to teach the younger generation about "marriage and love."

Responses to this shift included:

"It's mostly women bearing the responsibility of raising children, for the most part. And this society hasn't provided women with much support. So actually, if men could do more to raise the child, or if families could give more consideration for women who had just had children, actually a lot of women would be able to have a second child. Because it would be a bit better if a child has siblings. But thinking of the big picture, realistically, I don't want to have a second child. And a third is even more impossible," said Zhang Xinyu, a 30-year-old mother from Zhengzhou.

"Unless the government introduces real incentives, so providing special allowances to couples who have three children, like, you know, reductions for transportation, and other incentives, I don't think that Chinese couples are going to have more kids in the coming years," said Jean-Pierre Cabestan, who is a professor at Baptist University of Hong Kong.

"The immediate impact is likely to be positive but small on the macro level. The long term impact depends on if the government can successfully reduce the cost for raising children – particularly education and housing," Pinpoint Asset Management chief economist Zhiwie Zhang said.

"If relaxing the birth policy was effective, the current two-child policy should have proven to be effective too. But who wants to have three kids? Young people could have two kids at most. The fundamental issue is living costs are too high and life pressures are too huge, Commerzbank Senior Economist Hao Zhaou said.