Chinese women no longer want children – here are the reasons

China’s population has shrunk in recent years. Although the decrease from 1,412,600,000 to 1,411,750,000 inhabitants in the last official data publication in 2021 amounted to ‘only’ one million, it is the first time since 1960 that a decrease in the total number of inhabitants has been recorded. This is reported by the Chinese National Bureau of Statistics.

The population in what remains the most populous country in the world appears to have peaked. China is already experiencing an aging population. In the coming years, India is likely to overtake China at the top of the world population ranking.

There are many reasons to reach the Chinese “peak”. The main reason for this is the emancipation and the changed outlook of Chinese women, writes the American broadcaster CNBC. More and more Chinese women are choosing to focus on career and personal goals instead of starting a family.

Although Chinese politicians have long recognized the danger and have taken appropriate action – abolishing the one-child policy in 2016 and expanding it to three “allowed” children in 2021 – women and married couples in general still do not want to have more children.

Another reason is the coronavirus pandemic, as Mu Zheng, assistant professor of sociology at the National University of Singapore, told CNBC, “Covid continues to cause many negative consequences and a general sense of uncertainty about the future.” Rising living costs and a sense of helplessness are said to prevent Chinese women from having children.

But it’s not just the pandemic and the change in women’s attitudes that are causing China’s reproductive rate to fall. Traditional views in society also limit the development of the population. The newly discovered desire and opportunity for women to pursue a career has a double negative effect: Chinese women traditionally expect a potential husband to earn more than they do and be able to provide for the family.

But because more and more women are better or just as qualified as their potential husbands, there are fewer and fewer ‘worthy’ partners to be found. According to the German statistics service provider Statista, more than 40 percent of bachelor’s students are women. It is even more extreme in master’s degrees, where women already make up the majority – and the trend continues.

According to economist Andy Xie, the conservative views coupled with the simultaneous development of equal opportunities place a “huge burden” on Chinese men, he told CNBC. Being single is no longer a stigma like it used to be. As a result of these social developments, there are fewer couples and inevitably fewer babies.

China threatens to find itself in a situation similar to that in neighboring Japan, where fertility rates have been declining for years. A recent poll there found that half of all unmarried 30-year-olds have no interest in ever having children, as reported by Kyodo News. Japan has long struggled with an aging and shrinking population.

As the Chinese government struggles to find solutions that will solve the problem in the long term, there is an increasing effort from the private sector to adapt to the new social reality. For example, a large Chinese travel agency is trying to offer women a career and children with a tailor-made solution, a kind of pregnancy subsidy. The company pays high fees to women who freeze their eggs. The costs for this procedure are high and can hardly be financed privately.

The travel agency’s plan then provides that the women can fully concentrate on their careers in the company for up to eight years and always have the option to have children when they are ready. The decision to have a child is therefore honored – for example, pregnant women receive expenses for taxi rides to work and money when the child is born and goes to school. However, there is one catch: according to Chinese law, women must be married to freeze eggs – which is also a stumbling block because of the social developments described.

The travel agency’s approach is just one of many being trialled in China to deal with the looming population crisis. For example, a state-funded dating app recently made headlines:

China tried for years to artificially limit its exploding population. But the already far-reaching one-child policy, in combination with the changed social situation, could soon prove to be a merciless boomerang.

Some researchers predict that China’s population will shrink by half by 2100 if no action is taken now. This development would undoubtedly be devastating to China’s economy and the country’s quest for global power.