Have up to three kids: China lifts cap on births in major policy shift

Beijing

MARRIED Chinese couples may have up to three children, China announced on Monday, in a major shift from the existing limit of two, on the back of recent data indicating a dramatic decline in births in the world's most populous country.

Beijing scrapped its decades-old one-child policy in 2016, replacing it with a two-child limit to try and stave off risks to its economy from a rapidly ageing population. But that failed to result in a sustained surge in births, given the high cost of raising children in Chinese cities, a challenge that persists to this day.