Condoms and other contraceptive products are likely to become more expensive in China from next month, as part of Beijing’s wider push to lift the country’s birth rate.<\/p>\n
In an announcement about China’s Value-added Tax (VAT) Law this week, condoms and contraceptive pills were removed from the exemption list, meaning up to 13 per cent tax could be added.<\/p>\n
It will end a 33-year tax exemption on contraceptives first introduced under the One-child Policy.<\/p>\n
A condom in China can be as cheap as $0.60, roughly half the regular retail price in Australia. But it remains unclear how Chinese manufacturers and retailers will respond to the tax in the new year.<\/p>\n
Experts say the tax is a step backwards for women, young people and low-income groups, warning it overlooks gender-equality concerns and may make contraception less accessible for those who need it most.<\/p>\n
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Experts say the tax is a step backwards for women. (Reuters:\u00a0Damir Sagol)<\/p>\n
“It would be really important for young people in high school and college to keep them [contraceptives] accessible from a preventative perspective of STIs [sexually transmitted infections],” Daria Impiombato, senior analyst with Mercator Institute for China Studies (MERICS), told the ABC.<\/p>\n
“Some countries are moving towards making condoms free, especially for young people. Taxing them risks limiting access and undermining STI prevention.”<\/p>\n
A study released in June<\/a> found that among people aged 15\u201324 on the Chinese mainland, the incidence and mortality of STIs \u2014 including HIV \u2014 had been rising over recent years.<\/p>\n China first exempted condoms and contraceptive pills from VAT in 1993, at the height of its strict birth-control strategies. The aim was to make contraception cheap and widely accessible to slow population growth.<\/p>\n That logic has now flipped with birth rates hitting record lows and Beijing shifting from “population control” to “fertility promotion”.<\/p>\n While contraceptive products will lose the exemption, matchmaking agencies have been newly added to the tax-exempt list.<\/p>\n Chinese state media has been encouraging women to marry and have children during university years, something Ms Impiombato warns could also affect women’s educational and career pathways.<\/p>\n Experts say the new tax is not just an economic adjustment, but part of a broader political shift in how the state approaches family, marriage and reproduction.<\/p>\n A step backwards Daria Impiombato says contraceptives are important for stopping the spread of STIs. (Reuters: Stringer)<\/p>\n On the Chinese social media platform RedNote, some users said they were taken by surprise and had begun buying extra condoms in response.<\/p>\n “It’s not just having children being unaffordable now, so is having sex. Maybe better stay single,” one joked in a comment.<\/p>\n The contraceptives tax is one part of a wider national effort to boost fertility.<\/p>\n In July, Beijing introduced its first national birth-support package, offering families an annual allowance of 3,600 yuan ($776) per child until the child turns three.<\/p>\n State media described the reforms as a “fundamental realignment” of population strategy.<\/p>\n The shift comes as China records three consecutive years of population decline, including by 1.39 million in 2024.<\/p>\n Ms Impiombato said higher condom prices could put young people at greater risk.<\/p>\n “People were starting to be really upset about that because suddenly you start being penalised if you are single or don’t want to have children,” she said.<\/p>\n China’s state-owned media also featured reports of university students sharing their experiences of parenting while studying, and promoting the social benefits of having children while on campus.<\/p>\n “This raises questions about how marriage and parenting pressure at younger ages might impact women’s educational outcomes in the future,” Ms Impiombato said.<\/p>\n ‘It’s about politics’ The country\u2019s population strategy is undergoing a fundamental realignment. (AP: Andy Wong)<\/p>\n Zhou Yun, an assistant professor of social demography and family sociology at the University of Michigan, told the ABC the new tax underscored a deeper tension between the state and younger Chinese.<\/p>\n “China’s population policy has always been as much about demography as it is about politics,” Dr Zhou said.<\/p>\n She argued that the state continued to promote a narrow ideal of the “Chinese family”.<\/p>\n “Heterosexual marriage is privileged, women’s labour at home is expected \u2026 and those people outside the structure of heterosexual marriage are rendered invisible,” she said.<\/p>\n China to give parents cash in bid to lift declining birth rate<\/a><\/p>\n Beijing has announced a nationwide childcare subsidy policy to try and encourage people to have more children, but experts are not convinced the strategy will work.<\/p>\n Chinese state-owned media said that the change showed China’s population strategy was undergoing a fundamental realignment.<\/p>\n “In the 1990s, to control the rapid growth of the population, reducing the cost of contraception became one of the public policy objectives,” said an article on China.com, a government-sponsored website run by China Radio International.<\/p>\n The trend has been visible in recent state-media reporting<\/a>, including coverage of a study claiming that women who have three or four children live longer \u2014 a claim that drew significant public backlash.<\/p>\n Dr Zhou noted that scientific-sounding rationales often served political aims.<\/p>\n “As it was during the One-child Policy era, it continues to be the case that the language of science and seemingly scientific rationale are actively co-opted to lend a sense of legitimacy to demographic goals that are inherently political,” she said.<\/p>\n ‘Women as resources’ China’s harsh One-child era only came to an end a decade ago. (AP:\u00a0Mark Schiefelbein)<\/p>\n For both experts, the new tax highlighted a deeper tension that Beijing was urging people to have more children, while the structural pressures that deter young families remain largely unchanged.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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