Faced with a declining population, China pushing citizens to have babies

Vivian Wang

The first time a government worker encouraged Yumi Yang to have a baby, she thought little of it. She and her husband were registering their marriage at a local office in northeastern China, and the worker gave them free prenatal vitamins. When an official later called to ask if she had taken them, and then called again after she did get pregnant to track her progress, Yang shrugged those questions off too. But then officials showed up at her door after she had given birth, asking to take a photograph of her with her baby for their files. That was too much.

“When they came to my home, that was really ridiculous,” said Yang, 28. “I felt a little disgusted.”

Faced with a declining population that threatens economic growth, the Chinese government is responding with a time-tested tactic: inserting itself into this most intimate of choices for women, whether or not to have a child. Officials are not just going door to door to ask women about their plans. They have partnered with universities to develop courses on having a “positive view of marriage and childbearing.”

“I always feel, as a woman, if you’ve done your time on this earth and haven’t given birth to another life, that’s a real pity,” Gao Jie, a delegate from the All-China Women’s Federation, told reporters during a national meeting of lawmakers in Beijing this year. The in-your-face approach makes it harder for women to tune out calls by China’s leader, Xi Jinping, to get married and have babies. On social media, women have complained about being approached by neighborhood officials, including some who they said called to ask the date of their last menstrual cycle.

The central government has also recently pledged to reduce “medically unnecessary abortions,” setting off worries that access to the procedure could be restricted. Xi, who has overseen a crackdown on feminist activism, has said that promoting childbirth as a national priority is one step toward ensuring that women “always walk with the party.” (Estimated at around 1.0, China’s total fertility rate is among the world’s lowests.)

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