LAWMAKERS are deliberating a draft law amendment that will allow each couple to have three children, a key legal move to legitimize a new three-child policy.

The draft amendment to the Population and Family Planning Law was submitted yesterday to the ongoing session of the National People’s Congress Standing Committee for review.

The draft cancels relevant restrictive measures, including fines for couples that violate the law to have more children than they are permitted.

It also proposes supportive measures for the policy shift, including the exploration of parental leave and the establishment of more nursery facilities in residential communities, public areas and workplaces.

In May, the Communist Party of China’s Central Committee and the State Council decided that couples would be allowed to have three children rather than the previous maximum of two.

The decision, together with a slew of supporting measures for its implementation, aims to optimize the country’s demographic structure and achieve long-term and balanced population development.

The decision lays out supporting measures in three areas: strengthening child nursery services, reducing the cost of childbearing and improving prenatal and postnatal services.

Efforts will be made to support kindergartens in enrolling toddlers aged between two and three years old, instead of the previous standard of three and above, according to the decision.

The decision puts forward measures that facilitate tax breaks and housing guarantees, as well as ones that ensure education resources, in order to stimulate the desire to have more children.

Consideration is being given to allowing tax deductions on individual incomes for the costs of caring for children aged below three, while families with underage children will benefit from priority and preferential policies regarding the distribution of public rental housing.

The decision also includes measures to employ more flexible work leave for female workers, while protecting the health of pregnant and lying-in women as well as children, and tightening the supervision of human-assisted reproductive technologies and related applications.

(Xinhua)