China’s central government on Monday said couples are now allowed to have three children as the country eases its birthing policies in light of its aging population.

The national relaxation of birthing policies is said to help the country cope with an aging demographic that may impact its workforce, according to the state-run Xinhua News Agency. The decision was made at a meeting convened by the central government.

This announcement comes more than five years after China scrapped its decadeslong one-child policy, which in October 2015 allowed every family to have two children.

Though China saw a spike in births a year after the two-child policy was enacted, there was a decline over the next three years, confounding the expectations of officials and academics alike. In 2020, the number of newborns in China further plummeted to 12 million.

Editor: Bibek Bhandari. 

(Header image: Visual elements from BerSonnE/Vectorstock/People Visual, reedited by Ding Yining/Sixth Tone)