The high cost of living, delayed marriages and lack of social mobility are frequently cited as contributing factors to young Chinese people’s reluctance to have children, as well as the lingering impact of the government’s decades-long one-child policy, which included forced abortions.
In recent years, the government has lifted limits on the number of children a couple can have, introduced tax deductions and other incentives, and sought to address the high cost of raising a child, including by, in effect, shutting down the private tutoring industry. Yi Fuxian, an obstetrics and gynaecology researcher at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, suggested Chinese authorities were having trouble shifting from the policy setting where a pregnancy was considered a burden, to one where it is a contributor to the country’s wealth.
The rollout of domestic policies was having little effect, Yi said, because couples did not want to have children, could not afford to, or were leaving marriage so late that they found themselves unable to. “All economic and social policies have revolved around mainstream families with only one child … so young people protest by not having children, and Shanghai youth shout ‘we are the last generation’,” Yi said. “Only after making up for each shortcoming can the fertility rate be increased.
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