Beijing parents with three or more children will be fined, while fines for parents with two children will be abolished, said a draft regulation amendment on social maintenance fees issued by the Beijing government on Sunday.
The draft, published on the official website of the Legal Affairs Office of Beijing Municipality, abolishes the previous rule that parents ineligible to have a second child either in marriage or out of wedlock should be fined three to 10 times their per capita disposable income.
The new measures excuse parents with two children from these fines and set new standards for extra birth penalties.
According to the draft, ineligible couples will be assessed the existing standard fine upon the birth of their third child and will be fined additional fees upon each extra birth.
The draft also adds an article to specify how to calculate the total number of children that parents may have, including those whom they adopt.
The decision comes after China's top legislature decided in December to relax family planning policies in place since 1982 that required parents who had two children to pay additional social maintenance fees.
China began allowing all couples to have two children on January 1, ending the decades-long one-child policy against the backdrop of a shrinking labor force and an aging society.
Li Bin, head of the National Health and Family Planning Commission, said at a March news conference that the family planning policy shift will add 30 million people to China's workforce by 2050.
