By Jeph Ajobaju, Chief Copy Editor
China is desperate to increase its young population, the number of divorces fell 72 per cent in January because of mandatory “cooling off” period for divorce filings, and the country now allows couples to have three children instead of two.
Women, however, are not persuaded to breed more.
Latest government data shows that the average annual population growth rate was 0.53 per cent over the past 10 years, down from a rate of 0.57 per cent between 2000 and 2010 – bringing the population to 1.41 billion.
Another set of data released this month shows that around 12 million babies were born in 2020 – a significant decrease from the 18 million in 2016, and the lowest number of births recorded since the 1960s.
Faced with old people outnumbering the young, and with young couples reluctant to embrace the new policy to have two children, let alone three, China heads towards social dislocation unless it adopts effective measures, such as attracting immigrants.
Gender imbalance
Experts say China’s situation could be uniquely exacerbated given the number of men who are finding it difficult to find a wife in the first place, let alone think of starting a family.
There is a severe gender imbalance in the country – last year, there were 34.9 million more males than females, per BBC reporting.
This is a hangover of the country’s strict one-child policy, which was introduced in 1979 to slow population growth.
In a culture that historically favours boys over girls, the policy led to forced abortions and a reported glut of new born boys from the 1980s onwards.
“This poses problems for the marriage market, especially for men with less socioeconomic resources,” Dr Mu Zheng, from the National University of Singapore’s sociology department, told the BBC.
In 2016, the government ended the policy and allowed couples to have two children.
However, the reform has failed to reverse the country’s falling birth rate despite a two-year increase immediately afterwards.
No kids in this situation
The BBC quotes experts as saying it is also because the relaxing of the policy did not come with other changes that support family life – such as monetary support for education or access to childcare facilities.
Many people simply cannot afford to raise children amid the rising costs of living, they say.
“People’s reluctance to have children doesn’t lie in the process of childbearing, but what comes after,” Mu said.
She added that the notion of what makes a person successful has also changed in China – at least for those living in big cities.
No longer is it defined by traditional markers in life such as getting married and having children – instead, it’s about personal growth.
Women in particular are still expected to be the primary caregiver due to gender norms.
While China does in theory have 14 days of paternity leave, it is uncommon for men to take it – and even rarer for them to be full-time fathers.
Such fears may lead to women not wanting to have kids if they feel that it could dampen their career prospects, Mu said.
Regardless, China announced on Monday that it will now allow couples to have up to three children, after census data showed a steep decline in birth rates.
The latest move was approved by President Xi Jinping at a meeting of top Communist Party officials.
It will come with “supportive measures, which will be conducive to improving our country’s population structure, fulfilling the country’s strategy of actively coping with an ageing population and maintaining the advantage, endowment of human resources”, according to Xinhua news agency.
But human rights organisation Amnesty International said the policy, like its predecessors, was still a violation of sexual and reproductive rights.
“Governments have no business regulating how many children people have. Rather than ‘optimising’ its birth policy, China should instead respect people’s life choices and end any invasive and punitive controls over people’s family planning decisions,” said the group’s China team head, Joshua Rosenzweig.
Also, some experts were sceptical of the impact.
“If relaxing the birth policy was effective, the current two-child policy should have proven to be effective too,” Hao Zhou, a senior economist at Commerzbank, told Reuters.
“But who wants to have three kids? Young people could have two kids at most. The fundamental issue is living costs are too high and life pressures are too huge.”
Big news
The BBC says the announcement is big news in a country which didn’t start suddenly producing more babies when the one-child policy eased off to two.
In fact, many are asking how a three-child policy might mean more children when the two-child version didn’t, and why birth restrictions have remained here at all given the demographic trend.
Very good questions.
One thought is that, among those prepared to have two children, at least some parents will have three.
However, the BBC interviewed many young Chinese couples about this subject and it is hard to find those who want bigger families these days.
Generations of Chinese people have lived without siblings and are used to small families – affluence has meant less need for multiple children to become family-supporting workers, and young professionals say they’d rather give one child more advantages than spread their income among several kids.
What the census says
The census, released this month, showed that around 12 million babies were born last year – a significant decrease from the 18 million in 2016, and the lowest number of births recorded since the 1960s.
The census was conducted in late 2020 – some seven million census takers had gone door to door to collect information from households.
Given the sheer number of people surveyed, it is considered the most comprehensive resource on China’s population, which is important for future planning.
It was widely expected after the census data results were released that China would relax its family policy rules.
Too many big pressures
The BBC reports that China’s leading media are giving a lot of fanfare to the “three-child policy”.
Newspaper People’s Daily, broadcaster CCTV and news agency Xinhua are all posting happy cartoon images of children today on their social media pages and saying that the new policy has “arrived”.
It is already the top talking point on popular social network Sina Weibo – posts mentioning the new policy have already racked up tens of thousands of views, and hundreds of thousands of comments.
More than 180,000 users have commented on Xinhua’s upbeat post, and the ones with the most likes do not look upon the policy kindly.
“There are too many big pressures in life at the moment,” one user says, “Young people are not willing to have kids.”
Many talk about modern day “workplace dilemmas” for people leaving on maternity/paternity leave and there not being even “the most basic reproductive benefits”.
And with a shrinking labour market, young Chinese people today accept that they have to work longer hours. Overtime and overwork are endemic.
More women meanwhile are choosing to pursue further education and employment, rather than settle down early to start a family.
Can China lift birth restrictions entirely?
Ahead of China’s latest census, the BBC recalls, experts had speculated that birth restrictions might be lifted entirely – though it appears as though China is treading cautiously.
But others said that such a move could potentially lead to “other problems” – pointing out the huge disparity between city dwellers and rural people.
As much as women living in expensive cities such as Beijing and Shanghai may wish to delay or avoid childbirth, those in the countryside are likely to still follow tradition and want large families, they say.
“If we free up policy, people in the countryside could be more willing to give birth than those in the cities, and there could be other problems,” a policy insider had earlier told Reuters, noting that it could lead to poverty and employment pressures among rural families.
Experts had warned that any impact on China’s population, such as a decline, could have a vast effect on other parts of the world.
Dr Yi Fuxian, a scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said: “China’s economy has grown very quickly, and many industries in the world rely on China. The scope of the impact of a population decline would be very wide.”
Booming economy, changing demographics
CNN adds that China’s economy has boomed in recent years and its demographic needs have changed. Today, the government is relying on a large, youthful work force to support high levels of economic growth.
In an attempt to avoid a demographic crisis, the Chinese government announced in 2015 it would loosen the birth restrictions to allow up to two children per family.
State-run media tried to drum up support for the campaign.
In 2018, Communist Party mouthpiece People’s Daily published a full-page column titled, “Giving birth is a family matter and a national issue, too.”
However, the policy reversal failed to raise the country’s birth rate, which fell by almost 15 per cent year-on-year in 2020. Some couples have said the rising cost of living in China makes having a second child too expensive.
At the same time, China’s population is aging rapidly, endangering its economic growth. The 2020 census data showed the proportion of the population aged over 65 rose rapidly over the past decade, from 8.87 per cent in 2010 to 13.5 per cent in 2020.
The Chinese government has also discussed raising the retirement age in an attempt to deal with its aging workforce. Currently men retire at 60, while women can stop working at 55 for white collar employees.