Young Chinese Wary of Push for a Baby Boom
In China, a country that limits most couples to three children, one province is making a bold pitch to try to get its citizens to procreate: have as many babies as you want, even if you are unmarried.
The initiative, which came into effect last month, points to the renewed urgency of China’s efforts to spark a baby boom after its population shrank last year for the first time since a national famine in the 1960s. Other efforts are underway. Officials in several cities have urged college students to donate sperm, and there are plans to expand insurance coverage for fertility treatments.
But the measures have been met with skepticism, ridicule and debate, highlighting the challenges China faces as it seeks to stave off a shrinking work force that could imperil economic growth.
Many young Chinese adults, who were born during China’s one-child policy, are pushing back. To them, such incentives do little to address anxieties about supporting their aging parents and managing the rising costs of education, housing and health care.
Lu Yi, a 26-year-old nurse in Sichuan, the province that lifted birth limits, said that she would need to earn at least double her current monthly salary of 8,000 yuan, or about $1,200, to consider having children.
Many countries have the same demographic challenge, and their attempts to incentivize new babies have had a limited impact. But China has aged faster than other countries. The one-child policy, which was aimed at slowing population growth, precipitated the steep decline in births and led to a generational shift in attitudes around family sizes.
Efforts by the ruling Communist Party to raise fertility rates, by permitting couples to have two children in 2016, then three in 2021, have struggled.
Sichuan, the country’s fifth-largest province, with 84 million people, lifted all limits on the number of children that residents can register with the local government, a process that qualifies parents for paid parental leave and reimbursed hospital bills. In an unusual move, it also included parents who are unmarried.
In online forums, some commenters praised the policy as an overdue step to protect unmarried mothers. Others bemoaned that it would incentivize men to have babies with their mistresses.
In most of China, single mothers are denied the government benefits offered to married couples. Until recently, some provinces had even imposed fines on unmarried women who gave birth. But the baby shortage has prompted provinces like Sichuan to start legally recognizing children born to single mothers.
Women’s rights advocates have argued that the government’s effort to raise fertility rates risks reinforcing discrimination against women. Already, job listings sometimes seek only men or women who already have children.
“Until China fundamentally transforms its social institutions and has more gender equality, women can vote with their wombs,” said Wang Feng, a professor at the University of California , Irvine, who specializes in China’s demographics.
Last month, a hospital in Kunming, the capital city of Yunnan in southwest China, announced that college students, but only those taller than 165 centimeters, who donated sperm could receive 4,500 yuan, or about $660.
Officials are also doing more to expand access to treatments like in vitro fertilization. Yet experts have noted that declining birthrates are related more to economic and cultural shifts than to infertility.
Nearly one in five Chinese people ages 16 to 24 are unemployed, compounding the disillusionment of a generation in which many see the refusal to have children as an act of political resistance.
In a survey last year of about 20,000 younger Chinese people, two-thirds said they did not want to have children. Demographers cite the costs and pressures of the Chinese educational system as a major concern, recommending policy solutions like shortening schooling by two years and eliminating the competitive exam for entrance to high school.
For now, many cities in China are trying to address the financial pressures of parenting with direct cash payments.
In January, Shenzhen, a large city bordering Hong Kong, announced a proposal to provide 7,500 yuan, or about $1,100, to households that have one child, with additional payments for each sibling.
Tracy Chen, 36, a lawyer in Shenzhen who recently got married, said she initially wanted three children, but seeing her older sister and friends navigate the expense of raising even one child raised concerns.
Ms. Chen is thinking of trying for one child for now. She said the subsidy was a nice perk but that “it’s not enough to influence whether you will have a child or not.”