Health authorities in China’s southwestern province of Sichuan will permit unmarried individuals to have children, raise a family, and qualify for benefits previously allocated only to married couples in the most recent attempt to boost the country’s plummeting birth rate.
Although the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) mandates that only married women are lawfully permitted to give birth, record low marriage and birth rates in recent years have prompted the provincial authorities to revise a 2019 rule to include singles who want to have children.