原文选自中国日报，链接是City's new second-child incentives include preferential home-loan rates。

Families that have two children will enjoy preferential policies（优惠的、优先的政策） for housing loans in Xianning, Hubei province, in Central China, under one of the local government's new measures to encourage new births.

The city's health and family planning commission （卫生与计划生育委员会）published a document on Wednesday announcing several measures regarding baby care and home purchases to help families with two children.

In what is believed to be a first for China, families with two children will get the same interest rate for their second home purchase as that for the first home under the new measures. Usually, families have topay higher interest when they take out（借助贷款购房，通常二套要比一套利率高） a loan to buy a second home in the city and other places in China.

The new measures also encourage employers to give longer maternity and paternity leave （产假和陪产假，一时之间很难想到的搭配，值得摘抄记忆）for two-child parents.

While the current maternity leave for new mothers in Hubei is 128 days, Xianning's government extends the maternity leave to six months for two-child mothers, while two-child fathers have one month's paternity leave－15 days longer than the provincial level. The document also stipulates （法律政策范围的规定，）that workplaces should pay the same salaries to them during maternity and paternity leaves.

In addition, the city is pushing employers to allow flexible work schedules（对孕妇和有学龄前儿童的妈妈进行更为灵活的工作安排） for pregnant women and mothers whohave children 3 years old and younger. Employers are encouraged to provide babysitting areas（母婴区） and facilities at the workplace when they have the ability to do so.

The city will also provide prenatal genetic testing（生前基因检测） for women who have a second child in the city, and the women will get 300 yuan ($44) in subsidies for medical checkups（医疗检查） during the pregnancy.

According to the city's health commission, the number of new babies in 2016 in Xianning was 45,630, and 21,874 of them, or 48 percent, were the second children in their families. Last year, the city had 43,134 newborns－fewer than the previous year, although second children accounted for （占据）52 percent of the total, which was higher than in 2016, when China's universal second-child policy took effect（生效，开始实施）.

Nationwide, 17.58 million babies were born last year, with the number of second children accounting for more than 50 percent of the total, according to data provided by the national health authority.

However, responses on social media after the new Xianning policy was released indicate that not many found the policy to be attractive.

A netizen from Xianning who uses the name "hey-Yeworuo" on Sina Weibo, a social network similar to Twitter, said the housing price in the city is only 4,000 to 5,000 yuan a square meter, which is very low, so the preferential interest rate policy is not necessary.

Huang Pan, 30, a bank clerk who has one child in Wuhan, the capital of Hubei, said she believed that such policies are not a decisive（决定性的因素） factor for having a second child.

"Whether to have the second child mainly depends on families' financial abilities and marital relations," she said. "So far, I still don't want to have the second kid because Idon't think we can afford another one."

点评：随着当今社会父母对子女身体发育、吃穿住用行、公立教育、医疗保险、国内外旅游、家庭教育、技能培训等方面的重视，养娃成本急剧攀升。

笔者工作的三线小城，按照普通中产标准，孩子出生的喂养开支每年接近1.5万，好的私立幼儿园每年1.5万，私立小学初中约每年1.5-2万，加上孩子需要的课外辅导和旅游开支，把一个呱呱坠地的婴儿培养到大学不需要你提供财力支持，至少需要50万。这还不算你需要付出的养育时间、精力、损耗。所以，越来越多的适育群体并不愿意生二胎。这里牵扯到的义务和责任，可能会对自身生活的幸福指数产生较大影响。

当然，如果像有的农村，只在乎喂饱孩子，不管教育，那就另当别论了。