SHANGHAI, Feb 23 (Reuters) - The cost of raising a child in China stands at nearly seven times its per capita GDP, far more than in the United States and Japan, highlighting the challenges facing Chinese policymakers as they try to tackle rapidly declining birth rates, new research showed.

NFL owners converged in New York on Monday for their quarterly meeting, where players' health and safety were expected to be among a wide variety of topics discussed. (Reporting by Amy Tennery in New York Editing by Toby Davis and Lincoln Feast)

Beijing-based YuWa Population Research Institute said in a report published on Tuesday that the average cost of raising a child to the age of 18 in China in 2019 stood at 485,000 yuan ($76,629) for a first child, 6.9 times China's per capita GDP that year.

Experts warn China's ageing population will put huge pressure on its health and social security system, while a dwindling workforce could also severely limit growth for the world's second largest economy in the coming decades.

NEW YORK, Oct 18 (Reuters) - The National Football League (NFL) announced its first-ever "Black Friday" game will stream on Amazon Prime Video next year, building on the relationship between the league and the streaming giant.

The NFL already has a stranglehold on Thanksgiving broadcasts, with its annual lineup of Thursday games as common as turkey on the table in households across the United States for the annual American holiday.

China would need to spend at least 5% of its annual GDP to create incentives for couples to have more children, including education subsidies, preferential mortgage rates, tax breaks, equal paternity and maternity leave, as well as the construction of more childcare centres, it added.

Child rearing costs are even higher in China's major cities, reaching more than 1 million yuan in Shanghai and 969,000 yuan in Beijing.

Birth rates in the two cities are even lower than the national average.

"Thanksgiving is synonymous with football and we're excited to give our fans another day of NFL action during this holiday weekend," NFL Media Chief Operating Officer Hans Schroeder said in a statement.

Although new policies allow families to have as many as three children, China's birth rate dropped to 7.52 births per 1,000 people in 2021, the lowest since the National Bureau of Statistics began recording the data in 1949.

In court: The former couple began their custody battle in October of 2021, when the actor started a legal case regarding the home state of their children with the former residing in New York and the House actress staying in Los Angeles.

The former couple began their custody battle in October of 2021, when the actor started a legal case regarding the home state of their children with the former residing in New York and the House actress staying in Los Angeles.

On Weibo, another user writing under the name Lawyer Zhang, said that action needed to be taken to address the disproportionate burden faced by women, who are expected to give birth and raise children as part of their natural "motherhood".