Confused by "Family Planning" Mandarin

[Entropy_Rising]

Hi folks,

I was just doing some of my usually reading of the local news when I came across an article about rewarding families for following family planning regulations. Here's the sentence that trips me up:

5万余户允许生育3个孩子而自愿放弃生育第三胎的计划生育家庭，每户将获得一次性3000元奖金

Here's my sloppy translation:

Of the over 50 thousand "family planning"households that have allowed the birth of 3 children but have voluntarily renounced intentions to birth the third child (fetus), each will receive a one-time reward of 3000 yuan.

I know I'm just completely misunderstanding the Chinese (and thus am confident there are people here who can help me) but I'm not clear on this whole birth order slash renunciation part. Do these families already have three kids and are giving up birthing rights from now on? And if so, what's with the "third fetus" part 生育第三胎? If there are already three children shouldn't these families be renouncing rights to birthing a fourth fetus?

Or is this instead referring to families with two children where a woman pregnant with the third child submit to voluntary abortion? Which would explain the special use of the character for fetus, but I don't understand the first part, 允许生育3个孩子 - doesn't this particular use of 生育 imply that the third child has already been born or is there some sort of nuance that I'm missing? Could this 说法 apply to a woman who has two children and is pregnant with a 3rd (hence a total 生育3个孩子)?

I appreciate any help.Thanks!

[roddy]

I think your confusion is stemming from taking 户允许 as "households that have allowed" - it should be 'households that *are* allowed. So they have two already, are allowed a third (not sure why exactly, maybe have kids from previous marriages?) but are opting not to, and being rewarded RMB 3000. At least I hope that's what it means, the second option isn't so nice.

Edit: Actually I'm not so sure. 放弃生育第三胎, anyone?

[Entropy_Rising]

Agh, perfect, now that makes total sense. I appreciate the help.

And just to clarify, I live in an autonomous region so a lot of the minority families that are not in urban jurisdictions are allowed 3 children (if I understand the policy from casual chats with locals properly minority families in urban jurisdictions are allowed 2).

[YangDizi]

Entropy_Rising:

生育 as "to give birth".

In the sentence you have translated, 生育三个孩子 does not reflect that the third child has already been born but that the household has permission to produce a third child (允许生育3个孩子……的……家庭).

Here, 允许 is operating as a passive: the authorities have permitted the households in question to give birth to a third child.

From the context, it is clear that the sentence refers to the capacity of producing a third child rather than the fact that a third child has been produced. After all, it would not be possible to 放弃生育第三胎 once it had already been born (i.e. 胎 is a prenatal rather than postnatal term).

[skylee]

I know almost nothing about the policy. But my interpretation of the statement is that some families/couples (more than 50000) are allowed to have up to 3 children. For those who commit to voluntarily give up the right to have the third child (i.e. commit to have no more than 2 children), they will be given a one-off reward of 3000 RMB. I don't think "自愿放弃生育第三胎" means to abort the fetus. I don't even think "胎" means fetus here. I think it means to make use of various birth control methods to prevent from having the third child.

[YangDizi]

Entropy_Rising, abortion is a possiblity as are contraceptive methods: the key is that the household being financially rewarded has agreed not to give birth to a third child - how this is achieved is not relevant as far as implementation of the policy is concerned.