\u201cDecisions about having children in China today are shaped primarily by broader economic and lifestyle factors, such as the high cost of raising a child and the long working hours common in many urban sectors.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said young people \u201cgenerally feel that measures reducing the cost and time burden of childrearing would have a greater influence on their fertility choices\u201d.<\/p>\n
Many online commentators shared their disapproval of the policy change on popular Chinese forum RedNote, including one user who said: \u201cNow, not only can we not afford to have children, we can\u2019t even afford to have sex.\u201d<\/p>\n
The tax could have an outsized impact on low-income communities, who may be deterred from using contraceptives and become more vulnerable to sexually transmitted infections and unwanted pregnancies.<\/p>\n
Speaking with ABC News, senior analyst at Mercator Institute for China Studies, Daria Impiombato, said the change comes with significant risks amidst rising sexually transmitted infections (STIs) across the country.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt would be really important for young people in high school and college to keep them accessible from a preventative perspective of STIs.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome countries are moving towards making condoms free, especially for young people. Taxing them risks limiting access and undermining STI prevention.\u201d<\/p>\n
Impiombato warned the Government\u2019s incentivisation of childbearing could also have damaging effects on women and girls\u2019 access to education and freedom of choice.<\/p>\n
In the shadow of state-mandated abortions under the One-Child Policy, concern about the erosion of women\u2019s reproductive rights is rife.<\/p>\n
Jiangxi teacher Zou Xuan told the Associated Press the tax was \u201ca disciplinary tactic, a management of women\u2019s bodies and my sexual desire\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cDecisions about having children in China today are shaped primarily by broader economic and lifestyle factors, such as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":183095,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1443,116060,542,15316,27126,607,73897,116062,10474,4726,9359,38403,28164,266,42,78,5345,8461,15973,3556,43,90,3383,3109,15400,19257,17158,3057,116061,4758,7496,61,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-183094","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-about","tag-accelerated","tag-access","tag-birth","tag-break","tag-china","tag-condoms","tag-contraceptives","tag-control","tag-ends","tag-exemption","tag-falling","tag-fears","tag-government","tag-headlines","tag-in","tag-increase","tag-lift","tag-longstanding","tag-national","tag-news","tag-on","tag-products","tag-public","tag-push","tag-rate","tag-reverses","tag-steps","tag-stoking","tag-taking","tag-tax","tag-to","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183094","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=183094"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183094\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/183095"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=183094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=183094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=183094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}