Using coercion and fines, China was adept at preventing couples from having children during the decades of its one-child policy. It has been less successful in fostering a “birth-friendly society.”
@QiLiyan @qianweizhang
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@QiLiyan @qianweizhang Chinese births have gone from 18 million a year in 2016—when the one-child policy was scrapped—to below 10 million, down 46%. Even during the early 1960s famine, when China’s population was less than half what it is now, births never fell below 10 million.
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@QiLiyan @qianweizhang In China, the new demographic reality has prompted a campaign to rebuild a “pro-birth” culture—an effort led by the government-backed Family Planning Association, originally set up in 1980 as a network of enforcers of the one-child policy.
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@QiLiyan @qianweizhang Wang Pei’an, the body's Communist Party chief and for years a staunch defender of birth restrictions, is leading the campaign for more babies. “Without nurturing the ideas of marriage and childbearing, it will be extremely difficult,” he said this year.
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@QiLiyan @qianweizhang In Miyun on the outskirts of Beijing, officials have installed sculptures of two parents playing with three children. The Miyun branch of the Family Planning Association has set up a team of 500 people to “promote the new-style marriage and birth culture.”
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@QiLiyan @qianweizhang Officials have given out rice cookers and water bottles to women attending events promoting marriage and having children. In March, officials organized a hike to strengthen women’s physical fitness and make them more attuned to family values.
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@QiLiyan @qianweizhang Similar to how officials were long evaluated on how well they enforced the one-child policy, officials in Miyun will be judged partly on whether they can shift the trend in marriage and births, the local family planning association said in May.
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@QiLiyan @qianweizhang Miyun was selected as one of 20 testing grounds for the birth-culture campaign, launched last year. In Ningbo, to encourage men to play a bigger role, officials laud “penguin dads”—a reference to how they take turns keeping eggs warm and caring for chicks.
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@QiLiyan @qianweizhang Last month, authorities said that on top of the 20 cities, where the government says the campaign has increased “family happiness,” another 20 cities had been added to the testing grounds.
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@QiLiyan @qianweizhang Turning things around will be tough. Yang Ri, 35, a state-sector employee, said she spends $28,000 a year on her first-grade daughter, and can’t afford another. “All of a sudden, we’re expected to have three children without any help. That’s unreasonable.”
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@QiLiyan @qianweizhang Li Juan, who works in finance, said she feels bad that her son is growing up as an only child, but with no child-care help, she would have to quit her job if she were to have another child. “It isn’t simply a matter of a lack of subsidies,” said Li, 40.
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@QiLiyan @qianweizhang Marriage registration has dropped for years and declined further during Covid. The Ministry of Civil Affairs, which normally releases data on marriages, divorces and cremations every quarter, hasn’t released any reports since last year’s third quarter.
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@QiLiyan @qianweizhang While there are efforts to lower child-rearing costs, there has been no nationwide rollout of financial incentives—that's left to cash-strapped local governments. Huang Wenzheng of @CCG_org warns China won't lift its fertility rate without cash incentives.
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@QiLiyan @qianweizhang @CCG_org James Liang, a prominent businessman and scholar, has said that to raise the fertility rate to the replacement level of 2.1, the government must subsidize families by an average $140,000 per child in cash, tax rebates and housing and daycare subsidies.
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@QiLiyan @qianweizhang @CCG_org “The impact of all these policies is really rather minor,” says Ohio State University demographer John Casterline. “There has to be a cultural shift.” Adds @fuxianyi: “Having children is not a water tap, you can’t simply turn it off and then turn it on.”
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@QiLiyan @qianweizhang @CCG_org @fuxianyi 中国计生组织之变：从执行独生子女政策到劝人们生三胎—尽管政府努力从限制生育转向鼓励所有夫妻生育三个子女，但中国的出生率仍在继续下降。
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