China will start imposing a 13% value-added tax on contraceptives from January 1, while childcare services will be exempt from the same tax. Authorities say China is part of a broader effort to boost births as the country faces continued population decline. according to the BBC and the associated press.
The tax overhaul, announced late last year, ends exemptions that have been in place since 1994, when China still maintained its decades-long one-child policy.
In addition to the new tax on contraceptives such as condoms and birth control pills, the Chinese government is exempting childcare, marriage-related services and elderly care from the value-added tax (VAT), the BBC reported.
Beijing has pressured young people to get married and have children as the country struggles with an aging population and a sluggish economy. Official figures show that China’s population has shrunk for three consecutive years, with around 9.54 million babies born in 2024.
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A caregiver carries a baby in a woven basket in China as the government introduces new tax and social policies aimed at encouraging families to have more children amid a population decline. (Cheng Xin/Getty Images)
That figure is about half the number of births recorded a decade earlier, when China began easing restrictions on family size, according to national statistics cited by the BBC and the AP.
Chinese population pressure has been increasing for years. The number of births fell from about 14.7 million in 2019 to about 9.5 million in 2024. In 2023, India officially overtook China as the world’s most populous country.
The new tax on contraceptives has sparked ridicule and concern within China. On social media, some users joked about stockpiling condoms before prices rise, while others claimed the cost of contraception is insignificant compared to the cost of raising a child, the BBC reported.
“I have one child and I don’t want any more,” Daniel Luo, a 36-year-old resident of Henan province, told the BBC. He said the price increase would not change his family plans, compared to small increases in subway fares that do not change daily behavior.
Others worry the policy could have unintended consequences. Rosy Zhao, who lives in the central city of Xi’an, told the BBC that making contraception more expensive could push students or people under financial pressure to take risks. She called that the most dangerous potential outcome of the policy.
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China reversed its controversial one-child policy in 2015. (Adek berry)
Health experts echoed these concerns in interviews with the AP, warning that higher prices could reduce access to contraception and contribute to more unintended pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections. China recorded more than 670,000 cases of syphilis and more than 100,000 cases of gonorrhea in 2024, according to data from the National Disease Control and Prevention Administration.
China has also reported some of the highest abortion rates in the world. According to the National Health Commission, authorities recorded between 9 and 10 million abortions annually between 2014 and 2021. China stopped publishing abortion data in 2022.
Demographers and policy analysts remain skeptical that taxing contraceptives will meaningfully increase birth rates. Yi Fuxian, a senior scholar at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told the BBC that the idea that higher condom prices would affect fertility decisions amounts to overthinking policy.
Value-added tax revenues, which totaled almost $1 trillion last year, account for about 40% of China’s tax collection, according to BBC figures.
Henrietta Levin of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) described the move as symbolic and reflective of Beijing’s attempt to end what she called strikingly low fertility rates. She also warned that many incentives and subsidies rely on provincial governments already heavily in debt, raising questions about whether they can adequately finance the measures.
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A family of three takes a selfie at a Beijing mall as the Chinese government weighs options to boost the birth rate. (Yang Yuran/China News Service/VCG via Getty Images)
Public health experts interviewed by the AP said the policy could disproportionately affect women, who bear most of the responsibility for contraception in China. Research published in 2022 by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation found that condoms are used by about 9% of couples, while 44.2% rely on IUDs and 30.5% on female sterilization. Male sterilization accounts for 4.7%.
Some women say the tax revives resentment toward the government’s long history of involvement in reproductive decisions. According to the AP, the Communist Party enforced the one-child policy from roughly 1980 to 2015 through fines, punishments and, in some cases, forced abortions. Children born outside the policy were sometimes denied family registration, effectively preventing them from becoming citizens.
“It is a disciplinary tactic, a management of women’s bodies and my sexual desires,” Zou Xuan, a 32-year-old teacher in Jiangxi province, told the AP.
Concerns about further state interference have also surfaced in recent months. The BBC reported that women in some provinces have received calls from local officials asking about menstrual cycles and pregnancy plans. A health agency in Yunnan province said the information was needed to identify expectant mothers, a move that critics say would alienate the very families Beijing hopes to encourage.
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Levin warned that such an approach could damage public trust. She told the BBC: “The [Communist] The party cannot resist interfering in every decision that interests it. So it becomes its own worst enemy in some ways.”
As the government adjusts policies once used to limit population growth, experts warn that reversing decades of demographic trends will be much harder than raising box office prices, especially after years of policies that shaped whether families could have children.
