Birth rate in China declined in 2017

Beijing. June 14. Silkroadnews - Half of the 17.58 million newborns in 2017 were the second child in the family, the National Health Commission of China (NHC) reported, Xinhua reports.
“China’s two-child policy has been showing some results,” the NHC representatives said.
Compared with 2016, 2017 registered for 880,000 fewer births. In 2016, 18.5 million newborns were registered, which was the highest number since 2000 and 1.3 million more than in 2015, about 45% of them were the second child in the family.
Yuan Xin, a demographer from the University of Nankai, said that a decrease in the number of women in the most fertile age group from 20 to 34 has led to a decrease in the number of births.
According to him, the number of women aged 15 to 49 decreased by 4 million in 2017 compared to 2016.
“But overall, China’s two-child policy has seen good results as half of newborns in 2017 are a second child,” Yuan said.
To cope with the aging of the population, since 2016 the couples have been allowed to have a second child, ending the ten-year policy of one child.
South China’s Guangdong Province recently reduced fines for the birth of children in excess of the established limit.
Guangdong removed the ruling that citizens who work in state-owned companies and have more children than allowed would be dismissed and not be hired by state-owned enterprises for five years.  
China will not experience a shortage of labor for at least the next three decades, but may go through the most significant stage of population aging in history, Yuan added.
The NHC also reported that the average life expectancy rose from 76.5 years in 2016 to 76.7 years in 2017, while the infant mortality rate fell from 0.75% to 0.68%, and the maternal mortality rate dropped to 19,6 for every 100,000 births.