Support for larger families fresh priority

Experts call for policies to tackle issues of housing, taxation, women's working rights

More measures should be employed to encourage couples to give birth to a second child, while existing family planning policy should be further relaxed, population experts suggested amid expectations of further declines in the number of births in China.

"A series of policies to support the universal second-child policy should be rolled out to address concerns of couples who want to have a second child," said Yuan Xin, a professor of population research at Nankai University.