After Chinese Premier Li Qiang proposed policies to promote fertility in his annual Premier's Work Report, the National Health Commission recently launched a campaign to address "high-quality population development." Local governments have also introduced new and improved fertility policies, such as Zhejiang's comprehensive fertility policy, which covers everything from dating to childcare. Whether these proactive policies promoting fertility can address China's rapidly declining fertility rate remains a question.
China's National Health Commission recently announced a campaign to research and tackle key issues related to high-quality population development by 2025. The campaign requires health commissions across the country to organize research and optimize population development strategies for the new era from March to October, promote high-quality population development, improve fertility, and create a fertility-friendly social atmosphere.
Local governments have recently issued a series of fertility policies and documents. For example, Zhejiang Province is providing a comprehensive support system for young people, encompassing marriage, childbirth, raising children, education, and career development. The province has also pledged to optimize and improve the marriage and childbearing system for university students and build a safe, reliable, and high-quality online dating platform for young people. Hohhot, Inner Mongolia, has significantly increased childbirth subsidies, offering a 100,000 RMB subsidy for a third child. Dalian has implemented a maternity leave system. Ningxia has increased marriage leave from 10 days to 13 days, maternity leave to 60 days, and 10 days of parental leave for parents of infants aged 0 to 3 years.
Single Chinese migrant workers have decided not to marry or have children, saying they don't want their children to live in a country without human rights.
Xiao Qin, a 28-year-old single working man, told our station that the so-called marriage and childbirth subsidies in various places are just small favors that cannot solve the problem of young people being unable to start a family due to the high cost of living.
Xiao Qin said, "Why don't I want to get married? First, the cost of living is too high. In Beijing, 10,000 yuan is considered a relatively high income, but if you're from another city, just imagine how many years it would take to buy a house with 10,000 yuan. And if you get married and have a child, how much does the child's milk powder cost every month? It's a huge expense."
Xiao Qin said that living in China is like being in a big prison. He and his friends are unhappy and there is no reason to have children. He does not want the next generation to suffer like himself.
Xiao Qin said, "It's not like before. Young people nowadays think that if they want to get married and have children, they have to provide good protection for their children. We live in a country where even basic human rights are denied, but we have no way to change our current situation. We just stay out of it and don't get married or have children. Because if we get married and have children, they'll have to live like us, in a country without basic human rights. That's terrifying, terrifying."
Young people criticize the CCP's policy of controlling everything and promoting birth control, saying it treats people as if they are not human beings.
Jerry, a graduate student, said his first reaction to seeing the new policies promoting marriage and childbirth across the country was that they were unbelievable. On the one hand, the Chinese government's financial resources are far less than before, making it impossible for it to subsidize childbirth. On the other hand, China has never been a country that provides welfare benefits to its people, and he doubts whether these subsidy promises will be fulfilled in the future.
Jerry said, "Today they tell you you can get 100,000 yuan if you have two more children. But after you have two, they say sorry, but the subsidy is subject to certain conditions. The CCP's credibility has long been broken. We are just small leeks. It's impossible for us, who are already compliant, to receive 100,000 yuan just for having a child."
Jerry said that the government has recently shifted the target group for encouraging childbirth from young people who have just graduated to college students, and some students have been urged to get married and have children while they are still in school.
Jerry said, "Chinese universities used to strictly prohibit dating; anyone caught doing so would be punished. Now the schools are taking action. I have a classmate who's already a college counselor, and there's been internal chatter about their school trying to create a dating credit. It doesn't appear to be mandatory, but rather an encouragement for undergraduate and graduate students to date more on campus. They'll be organizing social gatherings and dating events. I think they're trying to meet certain fertility quotas."
Jerry is disgusted by the practice of forcing young people to marry and have children through mobilization and political campaigns. He said that seeing these policies not only finds them ridiculous, but also makes him feel that the government does not respect their rights as human beings.
Jerry said, "The CCP wants to control everything. It controls the heavens and the earth, women's wombs, your fertility, your love lives. It doesn't treat people as human beings at all, it treats them as tools. When it feels the population is too large, when it feels productivity isn't up to par, it implements family planning to control the population. Now that it's short on leeks and needs more labor, it wants the population to increase. It treats people as mere statistics."
Analysis: China's fertility and education contradictions make it difficult to solve the problem of declining birth rate
Population expert Yi Fuxian noted that Japan has used subsidies and other methods to encourage childbirth for many years, but with limited success. The same approach would be even less effective in China, given the government's limited financial resources, lower household incomes than in Japan, and the conflicting policies on fertility and education. Under these circumstances, policies promoting childbirth would be ineffective.
Yi Fuxian said, "Many of China's government policies are contradictory. Because of the emphasis on high-quality and innovative productivity, and the talent dividend, education is being postponed, preventing young people from getting married and leading to a continuously rising unmarried rate. If the age of first birth exceeds 28, it's difficult to raise the fertility rate to 1.5. China's age is currently approaching 30, and the fertility rate is continuously declining. On the one hand, China lacks the funds to encourage childbirth, as the proportion of household income in China is too low. In Taiwan, household income accounts for 59% of GDP, while in China it only accounts for 44%, making it difficult for families to raise children. Furthermore, housing prices in China are much higher than in Japan. Consequently, this systemic problem in China means that young people are reluctant to have children, and the government is powerless to address this."
Yi Fuxian said that China must simultaneously carry out reforms in housing, economy, social security and education, with the primary goal of encouraging childbirth and creating promising future prospects for young people, in order to have a chance to change the problem of rapid population decline.
