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- The Chinese government is trying to incentivize women to have more children.
- A government campaign to foster a "birth-friendly culture" is appealing to matchmaking events.
- Many Chinese women are defying the mounting pressure to have more children.
Chinese women are increasingly resisting Beijing's push for more children, put off by government harassment and the burdens of child-rearing, according to The Wall Street Journal.
This defiance poses a crisis for the Communist Party, as the nation faces a demographic collapse with fewer than 10 million babies born in 2022, compared to 16 million in 2012, the report said.
The seismic demographic shift means that by 2040, China is expected to have 400 million people above the age of 60 — a higher number than the entire US population.
Amid a declining birth rate and an aging population, China's leader Xi Jinping has urged action, highlighting the urgency to prevent a further decline in China's population.
He told the Communist Party-linked All-China Women's Federation in October that women must help establish a "new trend of family."
Xi also said he wants the Chinese people to "actively cultivate a new culture of marriage and childbearing and strengthen guidance on young people's view on marriage, childbirth and family."
But Chinese women are pushing back. "I can't afford to take care of anything else outside of my parents and work," Molly Chen told The Wall Street Journal.
Despite efforts to promote "family values," party lectures, and cash incentives for having more children, many young women view marriage and child-rearing as impractical, citing economic concerns and limited personal freedom, the report said.
The shift in mindset is evident in the decline of registered marriages, falling from 13 million in 2013 to 6.8 million in 2022, it added.
Despite government crackdowns on women's rights activists, a national debate over the treatment of women has erupted. One woman speaking to The Journal said that it wasn't long ago that she was dodging fines for having too many children. Now she is being harrassed by text messages to have more.
In the face of Beijing's continued efforts to encourage childbirth, a growing number of women are choosing to remain single and childless, reflecting a complex landscape for China's demographic future.