China is faced with stiff opposition from its citizens to obey directions that they marry early and have at least three children. Since the middle of last year, when the new policy allowing Chinese to have three children was announced, considerable dissonance has been seen in society and this is reflected on social-media platforms like Weibo and WeChat. With an ageing population and negative population growth, China announced a revision of its policies, after census data showed a decline in birth rates.
According to China’s National Bureau of Statistics, in the six-year period between 2013 and 2019, the number of Chinese marriages has nose-dived by 41 per cent, with only 7.6 million couples registered for marriage last year. This is the lowest figure in the last 36 years. As a result, the birth rate of China has dropped to 7.5 births per 1000 people. The Census, (May 2021), 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. China had a fertility rate of just 1.3 children per woman in 2020, recent data showed, on par with ageing societies like Japan and Italy and far short of the roughly 2.1 needed for replacement level. Nine provinces and regions have registered negative population growth. That is the primary reason for the renewed push to have at least three children. In 2016, China scrapped its decades-old one-child policy, replacing it with a two-child limit which has failed to lead to a sustained upsurge in births.
The cost of raising children in cities has deterred many Chinese couples. Reuters cites a 2021 study published by Zhejiang University and Beijing Normal University, which found the two-child policy encouraged wealthier couples who already had a child and were “less sensitive to child-rearing costs”, while driving up the costs of childcare and education and discouraging first-time parents. Also, the Chinese state has enforced its policies and fines to encourage procreation. In 2017, about a year after Beijing’s relaxation of the one-child policy, some localities required couples to make deposits at the time of marriage and returned the funds only after the birth of their second child. Such harsh tactics are not uncommon in China.
Global Times reported that China had officially relaxed its family planning policy, allowing couples to give birth to three children. “The move aims to improve China’s population structure and actively respond to the country’s aging problem.” That was the noble objective, but in practice this has not succeeded. China issued a new Population and Family Planning Law that allows Chinese couples to have three children, ostensibly responding to couples’ unwillingness to have additional children due to rising costs. Chinese provinces announced a slew of supportive measures, including childbearing subsidies and tax cuts, to motivate couples to have three children.
Opposition to bearing children comes as most would-be parents claim they just cannot guarantee enough financial security to look after the wellbeing of their children as their own lives are so much under pressure due to forced quarantines and unending lockdowns. The frustration of being forced to stay locked inside homes, food shortages, lack of income, rising prices, health problems, etc., have led to disillusionment among the country’s people. The government is beginning to realise that most of the citizens are agitated with the growing official pressure on them to produce more children. Another critical issue that makes the Chinese oppose having more children is that they remember the pain and torture they or their parents endured when Communist China enforced the ‘one-child policy’. When the 3-child policy was announced last year, official news agency Xinhua claimed that it would 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.” Chinese citizens, however, claim that the government has not come out with any policy changes to make it easier for couples to have more children. Therefore, when the government now wants them to have more children, people are unwilling. A worried government is now trying to generate trust by having a two-way communication about the need for more children.
The government has introduced several contests in this regard, but the response is not enthusiastic as time is running out. If birth rates continue to decline, the labour force in China will also shrink dramatically in the coming years as the number of young people in the country is declining. Furthermore, due to increased educational and economic development of Chinese women, their propensity to marry is even lower than that of males. At the end of the day, a three-child policy will be even less successful than China’s two-child policy, which itself was a complete flop. So, China could—and probably will—take the next step and outright force couples to have children. It is argued that China is not about to abolish family-planning rules because that would result in losing a mechanism of control. The Communist Party of China under Xi Jinping is moving China back to Mao-era totalitarianism. This is to ensure that officials do not surrender opportunities to micromanage the lives of Chinese citizens. As one observer notes, “the womb police are still in business.” This brings us to a disturbing future possibility of Chinese officials coercing couples; single females are not eligible for birth permits, into having children. “What will the Communist Party do next?” is the moot question. “Will it turn to forced pregnancy? Since coercion is at the core of their population control policy, this possibility cannot be dismissed.” Chinese citizens are thus already concerned about being forced to procreate.
