Chinese authorities ask: Dear newlywed, when’s the baby arriving?

From 20A

Having imposed a one-child policy from 1980 to 2015, China has acknowledged its population is on the brink of shrinking - a potential crisis that will test its ability to pay and care for its elderly.

New births are set to drop below 10 million from last year’s 10.6 million, a decline that will follow an 11.5% slide in 2020.

More recently, China’s uncompromising “zero-COVID” policy of promptly stamping out any outbreaks with strict controls on people’s lives may have caused profound, lasting damage to their desire to have children, demographers say.

Some experts and activists are also concerned by the government’s ramping up of rhetoric about the value of women’s traditional roles and setbacks to women’s rights, such as new policies which discourage abortions that are not medically necessary.

One person who posted in the comment section of the original post on Thursday said she got married in August last year and had since been twice rung up by her local government, which she did not name.

The first time she was asked if she was taking folic acid and if she was preparing to conceive. The second time, she was asked if she was already pregnant.

“You are married, why are you still not preparing for pregnancy? Take the time to have a baby,” she said she was told.