{"id":172020,"date":"2025-12-07T12:39:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-07T12:39:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/172020\/"},"modified":"2025-12-07T12:39:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-07T12:39:08","slug":"will-china-forcibly-boost-fertility","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/172020\/","title":{"rendered":"Will China forcibly boost fertility?"},"content":{"rendered":"

When China implemented its one-child policy in 1980, it also raised the barriers to marriage and made divorce easier. Later, in 1991, the government introduced the \u201cone-vote veto<\/a>\u201d system, which\u00a0linked<\/a>\u00a0party cadres\u2019 promotion to meeting population-control goals. These moves, coupled with coercive measures such as forced abortions and\u00a0enormous fines<\/a>\u00a0for having more than one child, efficiently contributed to the rapid decline of the fertility rate from 2.3 in 1990 to\u00a01.22<\/a>\u00a0in 2000.<\/p>\n

That trend has proven difficult to reverse. Now with one of the world\u2019s lowest fertility rates, China is widely expected to adopt a range of pronatalist policies in a bid to escape this trap. The country does seem to be moving in this direction. In May, to facilitate marriage, China allowed couples to wed anywhere in the country, as opposed to their place of residence. So far, it seems to be working: the policy change immediately produced a\u00a022.5% year-on-year increase<\/a>\u00a0in marriages in the third quarter of 2025.<\/p>\n

But this positive effect will be short-lived. Consider what happened when China introduced a mandatory \u201ccooling-off<\/a>\u201d period for divorcing couples in 2021:\u00a0divorces<\/a>\u00a0fell from 4.34 million in 2020 to 2.84 million in 2021, but then climbed back to 3.51 million in 2024, with a further\u00a06% year-on-year increase<\/a>\u00a0in the first three quarters of 2025. After a brief rebound, marriages will resume their\u00a0downward path<\/a>, owing to the steady decline in China\u2019s childbearing-age population and the persistent oversupply of men.<\/p>\n

Moreover, China recently introduced an\u00a0annual childcare subsidy<\/a>\u00a0of CN\u00a53,600 (NZ$900) for each child under three. But other countries\u2019 experience suggests that these payments are unlikely to have a significant impact. Despite offering far more\u00a0generous subsidies<\/a>, Japan has not managed to halt, let alone reverse, its\u00a0declining fertility rate<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Concerns are growing that China might turn to coercive measures if these incentives prove ineffective. But this fear is almost surely misplaced. While governments can reduce births by mandating sterilisation and abortion, they cannot compel people to marry, become pregnant, or undergo fertility treatment.<\/p>\n

Trying to force women to have more babies would inevitably lead to more abandoned children, who would then fall under government care, possibly for decades. Given that heavily indebted local governments lack the financial resources to encourage childbirth, they can hardly afford to assume responsibility for a growing number of abandoned children.<\/p>\n

Over the course of the one-child policy, contraception became a necessity, and contraceptives were tax-exempt. China is now among the countries with the\u00a0highest use<\/a>. Starting January 1, 2026, contraceptive products such as condoms will be\u00a0removed<\/a>\u00a0from the list of tax-exempt goods and services. With demand so persistent, any effort to prohibit contraception would trigger a public backlash.<\/p>\n

Similarly, while the Chinese government has called for a reduction in the number of \u201cmedically unnecessary<\/a>\u201d abortions, it is unlikely to ban the procedure outright (or even restrict access as severely as some jurisdictions in the United States). Decades of atheistic indoctrination under the Communist Party of China, coupled with the widespread use of abortion as an (at times coercive) instrument of population control, have made the Chinese public the world\u2019s most accepting of the procedure. Even in 2020, four years after the Chinese authorities abandoned the one-child policy,\u00a043% of pregnancies<\/a>\u00a0were terminated.<\/p>\n

Not only would an abortion ban meet intense resistance. It would also be futile, driving the practice underground. During the 36 years of the one-child policy, many physicians were trained in abortion care \u2013 so much so that even township clinics offer the procedure. And while the Chinese government has always prohibited sex-selective abortion, the country has long maintained a large\u00a0male-to-female<\/a>\u00a0imbalance at birth, up to 120 boys per 100 girls, indicating that illegal abortions are widespread.<\/p>\n

Although coercive pronatalist measures are unlikely to be enacted at the national level, some local governments \u2013 particularly in Shandong province, which is notorious for overzealous policy enforcement \u2013 may resort to them. For example, in response to the 1991 \u201cone-vote veto\u201d policy, some counties in Shandong\u00a0launched a campaign<\/a>\u00a0to go \u201cnewborn-free in 100 days.\u201d In the\u00a02000 census<\/a>\u00a0the national population of children aged 5-9 was 72% the size of the cohort aged 10-14, but that ratio was drastically lower in Shandong, at 47%, with the province\u2019s Dongping, Ningyang, and Feicheng counties recording rates of 25%, 23%, and 19%, respectively.<\/p>\n

But this time around, Shandong\u2019s efforts may be limited to reporting inflated birth numbers. It wouldn\u2019t be the first time the province has fudged demographic data. After China implemented a selective two-child policy in 2013, Shandong reported\u00a0one-quarter<\/a>\u00a0of all second-child applications nationwide, despite accounting for only 7% of the country\u2019s total population. But these applications did not result in live babies: Shandong\u2019s births\u00a0fell by 11%<\/a>\u00a0in 2015<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Likewise, after the Chinese government implemented the universal two-child policy in January 2016, the resulting birth peak was not expected until the fourth quarter. Yet Shandong\u2019s\u00a0reported births<\/a>\u00a0skyrocketed from 1.23 million in 2015 to 1.77 million in 2016, an increase of 535,000 that accounted for 41% of China\u2019s total rise. This is difficult to reconcile with the\u00a05% decline<\/a>\u00a0in the province\u2019s primary school enrollments in\u00a02022<\/a>, the year these children should have started school.<\/p>\n

China\u2019s pronatalist policies may trigger a temporary rebound in births. But it seems likely that many of these children will exist only on statistical ledgers, much like the \u201cdead souls\u201d in Nikolai Gogol\u2019s eponymous novel.<\/p>\n

*Yi Fuxian, a senior scientist in obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, is the author of\u00a0Big Country with an Empty Nest<\/a>,\u00a0which went from being\u00a0banned<\/a>\u00a0in China to\u00a0ranking first<\/a>\u00a0in\u00a0China Publishing Today\u2019s 100 Best Books of 2013 in China.\u00a0Copyright 2025 Project Syndicate, here with permission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When China implemented its one-child policy in 1980, it also raised the barriers to marriage and made divorce…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":172021,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[138,219,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-172020","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172020","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=172020"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172020\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/172021"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=172020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=172020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=172020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}