China Eyes Free Preschool Education Amid Birth Crisis
China Eyes Free Preschool Education Amid Birth Crisis - Beijing has struggled to reverse a demographic decline, a trend analysts said could jeopardize the CCP’s geopolitical ambition.
Udumbara
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China has unveiled a new initiative aimed at gradually waiving preschool education fees, the latest push to address the country’s declining birth rate and shrinking population.
Under the new scheme, children in their final year at public kindergartens will have their early childhood care and education fees waived, according to guidelines issued by China’s State Council on Aug. 5. Private institutions are also required to reduce tuition fees in line with the amount waived at local public kindergartens, it said.
Most kindergartens in China offer three-year programs, and the costs vary across regions. In big cities such as Shanghai and Guangzhou, the monthly expenses range from approximately 1,000 yuan to 15,000 yuan ($140 to $2,100), including fees for childcare, education, meals, and other activities. Beijing’s latest scheme exempts the childcare and education fees.
Beijing last week introduced a nationwide subsidy that will give each child under 3 years of age 3,600 yuan (approximately $500) every year.
Chinese Premier Li Qiang first announced the idea of free preschool education in March.
Some netizens said the new incentives are not solutions.
“They completely missed the main point. If we don’t want babies, what’s the point of free preschool education?” one user wrote on China’s social media platform Weibo.
“Whatever you say, I won’t have children,” another commented.
To encourage couples to have two or three babies, every province had introduced its own incentives, ranging from cash handouts to tax breaks, China’s top health body, the National Health Commission, said in December 2024.
According to China’s official data, 9.54 million people were born in 2024, a little more than half the number in 2016, when Beijing relaxed the decades-old one-child restrictions and recorded 17.86 million newborns. With 10.93 million deaths reported, the country’s population shrank for the third year in a row in 2024.
Shrinking Population Amid Weak Economy
The world’s second-largest economy has already felt the effects of its shrinking population. In recent years, numerous kindergartens nationwide have shut down, resulting in the loss of jobs for tens of thousands of faculty and staff. Data from China’s Ministry of Education show that in 2024 alone, the number of preschool teachers fell by 240,000.The expense of looking after a child until the age of 18 is estimated to cost 6.3 times China’s gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, making it the second-most expensive country for child-rearing globally, according to a recent estimate by YuWa Population Research Institute, a Beijing-based think tank established by Chinese economist Ren Zeping and demographer Liang Jianzhang. In comparison, the cost in the United States is 4.1 times its GDP per capita, while in Canada, it’s 4.3 times, according to the report.
Another pressing factor is poor job prospects in an economy where one in seven people between the ages of 16 and 24 are already out of work.
Due to China’s economic downturn and trade tensions with the West, many companies are struggling to survive or facing bankruptcy, leaving workers uncertain about their future, according to Li.
“Everyone expects next year [2026] to be worse than this year, so people don’t dare to get married and have children,” he said.
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