Beijing is offering to pay for IVF and most other fertility treatments after China recorded its first population decline in more than 60 years

A nurse takes care of a newborn baby at a hospital in China.

Xu Hongxing/VCG via Getty Images

• Some Chinese cities will fund fertility treatments to combat low birth rates.
• Beijing announced it would cover more than a dozen fertility treatments, including IVF.
• The country faces its first population drop in 60 years, with 2022 births at a record low.

Bejing announced it would start covering fertility treatments in July as China scrambles to reverse a declining birth rate.

Beijing's government said this week it would cover more than a dozen fertility treatments, including IVF, embryo transplantation, and freezing and storing semen, Reuters reported. 

The announcement comes as China, long the world's most populated country, faces its first population decrease in 60 years. Births fell to a record low of 6.77 per 1,000 people in 2022, Reuters reported. The population decline could mean that India will soon have the world's most people, if not already.

According to the United Nations, China reached a peak of 1.426 billion people in 2022, and experts predict the population could drop below 1 billion by the year 2100. A declining population in China could have severe implications for its future economic health.

Bejing is not the only city in China announcing sweeping fertility changes. Some other cities are loosening restrictions on who can access fertility treatment.

Previously, the national policy required women to be married in order to register children and access treatments like IVF and egg freezing, Reuters reported. Government advisors suggested earlier this year that single women should also be permitted access to fertility treatments, though key Chinese leaders have not yet publically commented on the issue. 

The country is still awaiting a court verdict in the landmark case of Teresa Xu, a 35-year-old unmarried Chinese woman who sued a Bejing hospital in 2019 for refusing to let her freeze her eggs due to her marital status.  

"If (the country) decides to allow single women to freeze their eggs from the standpoint of encouraging childbirth, this will definitely help single women to have children," Xu previously said, according to a Reuters report. 

Meanwhile, private clinics in the southwestern Chinese province of Sichuan have already begun allowing unmarried women access to fertility treatments, including IVF, Reuters reported.

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