cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/46691137
- China will impose a 13% value-added tax on contraceptive drugs and devices, including condoms, for the first time in three decades.
- The revision to the Value-Added Tax Law also exempts child-care services, elder-care institutions, disability service providers, and marriage-related services from the tax.
- The changes are part of China’s efforts to reverse plunging birth rates and encourage people to have more children, as the population has shrunk for three consecutive years.
[…]
China will impose a value-added tax on contraceptive drugs and devices — including condoms — for the first time in three decades, its latest bid to reverse plunging birth rates that threaten to further slow its economy.
Under the newly revised Value-Added Tax Law, consumers will pay a 13% levy on items that had been VAT-exempt since 1993, when China enforced a strict one-child policy and actively promoted birth control.
At the same time, the revision carves out new incentives for prospective parents by exempting child-care services — from nurseries to kindergartens — as well as elder-care institutions, disability service providers and marriage-related services. The changes take effect in January.
They reflect a broader policy pivot, as a rapidly aging China shifts from limiting births to encouraging people to have more children. The population has shrunk for three consecutive years, with just 9.54 million births in 2024 — barely half of the 18.8 million registered nearly a decade ago, when the one-child policy was lifted.
[…]
Attempting to make contraceptives expensive in the 21st century makes me grin. Let’s try to make water expensive in a sea.
They might prevail by enforcing a 500% tax on the most effective contraceptive: smartphones. :)
However, more realistically - until people feel secure about their future and feel that having children is not a setback or big risk…
…and have time and tools to find likeminded partners and build relationships (current dating sites are miserable tools in the West, not sure about what they have in China, and participants in a corporate rat race don’t have time)…
…and until people have education to maintain and fix those relationships…
…until then, hasta la vista government (try again after figuring things out).
These are gonna be some well-adjusted, loved babies raised by only the most responsible and financially capable parents.
what they will actually get: a massive surge in STD’s and a public health crisis
also isn’t their (now unreported) youth unemployment rate some shit like 25%?
Hey China is awesome at containing viral outbreaks
If billionaires and politicians would just not be so shit and would invest in education, society, and making things better, birth rates would not be so on the decline.
This is some “people aren’t choosing healthy food, so raise the taxes on sugar” shit.
How about building a society and economy where having children doesn’t feel like an overwhelming detriment to the parent’s and child’s well-being?
I got curious and started Googling. Apparently China has VERY recently created a subsidy for parents, and finally begun creating support for early childhood care centers, which have traditionally been apparently prohibitively expensive due to privatization (In MY “Communist” China?). It’s good to see there is some actual social progress being implement alongside the hair-brained capitalist schemes that only serve to do harm to the poorest classes. But hey, fuck the points if it keeps the economy going, right?
Except sugar is bad for you. Contraceptives aren’t.
This is an awful comparison.
Then I believe you I missed the comparison.
I’m not suggesting that in both cases, a government is doing things to make “bad choices” harder. I’m suggesting that in both cases a government is disproportionately punishing the less wealthy to get what it wants. In neither case does the government gives a shit if you, individually, lead a healthier life or have a child. It wants you to generate more wealth for the country, whether that be by demanding less for health care costs or by producing the next worker drone.
The point in the sugar tax comparison, a real thing that happened in parts of Canada by the way, is that the government should be reducing the costs of the healthy choices, not making the unhealthy choices more expensive, as people were largely turning to unhealthy choices because they were cheaper and do not have the wealth to make better choices. Likewise, if the Chinese government wants to improve the birth rate of its population, they should make childcare more affordable and look to give parents more wealth/time, not attempt to punish them financially for preventing a pregnancy. Punishing a population that is making the choice you don’t want them to make out of necessity isn’t the solution to get them to make the choice you want. “Poor tax” is never a good solution, and that’s what the comparison is: two versions of “poor tax.”
Lmao
The US birth rate and china’s birth rate are shockingly similar. I love how we point to their one child policy for their issues while ignoring what both populations are saying. Turns out run away capitalism is too blame. The one child policy doesn’t explain why both populations millennials and gen xers are not interested in even having relationships, let alone having children. Both sets say the same things. Not enough money, too much work, worries about climate, and fear of world conflicts. Both China and US people need to realize both our governments are more likely to role back women’s rights to increase birth rates opposed to emancipating their people.
