As the cost of living becomes more expensive and the uncertainty about the future grows, many couples put all their energy and money into their only child.
Two-year-old Xiao Kaixi is learning to ride a bike. He is Zhou's only son.
The story begins with Liu Fang. Nine years ago, her job was to ensure that all the women in the village did not give birth to children not recognized by the government. If couples had daughters or children with disabilities, they would be given another chance to have children. For couples who already had two children or a son, Liu’s job was to hand out condoms and warn women to use IUDs. If they were unlucky enough to get pregnant again, Liu would encourage them to have an abortion.
As the representative of the All-China Women's Federation in Nanchuan, a town of 60,000 people on the outskirts of the city, Liu was entrusted with the task of controlling the population in her area. Her work was judged on the number of children born, the criteria being as few as possible.
However, after the Chinese government abandoned its one-child policy three years ago, Liu's mission changed from ensuring local women did not have too many children to encouraging them to have as many as possible.
Zhou is preparing his son Xiao Kaixi to learn to ride a bike.
Throughout the one-child policy, propaganda slogans throughout the country carried the same message: "The fewer children you have, the faster you get rich." And although it was widely known asone-child policyBut in fact people call this1.5 child policy. Because second children born in violation of the one-child policy are not allowed to attend public schools or receive public health care, they have virtually no identity in society. That is why, according to statistics from the Health Commission, since 1980, there have been about 400 million abortions in China.
This is the result of 36 years of extreme social reforms aimed at curbing the birth rate by the government. This was part of a campaign to develop the economy and improve the quality of life, believing that limiting the population would make it easier to increase per capita income. The idea has largely worked out for the government, with about 100 million people under 40 born during the one-child policy era. Incomes have increased from about $200 per person in 1980 to $10,000 per person today.
But this policy has been taken to extremes.
Now, most people don’t want more than one child. China’s population is expected to reach 1.45 billion as early as 2027 and then begin a decades-long decline. By 2050, about a third of the population will be over 65, and the number of working-age people is expected to shrink. So who will power the economy? Who will care for the elderly? Who will pay the taxes on the apartments?
If China was previously criticized for problems related to population explosion and loss of control, now this country must face the problem of having too few young people.
Many experts say the millennial-old nation is beginning to disintegrate into small groups of elderly and frail residents, largely because of misguided population control policies.
The Beijing government appears to have recognized this and adjusted to a two-child policy in 2016. While it once claimed that having one child was a patriotic duty for couples, it now says that normal Chinese people should have at least two.
Zhou Jing with her husband and son in their home in Wuhan.
Having children is no longer just a family matter, it has become a national matter. Not wanting to have children has also become a burden on the entire society.
However, it is worth noting that government policies have had very little impact on fertility in modern China today.
The national population growth plan predicted there would be about 20 million births in 2018, ushering in a baby boom after the end of the one-child policy. However, there were only about 15.23 million births in China last year, 2 million fewer than the year before.
And all of these have a direct impact on economic decline.
As China began to transform, the cost of living rose dramatically, especially in the big cities. Today’s 20-somethings realized their quality of life was much better than their parents’ and expected their children to enjoy similar values.
"We all want a second child. We want our son to have someone to play with," said Zhou Jing, a 29-year-old mother in Wuhan, Hubei province.
Zhou attends swimming class with his son.
Many parents spend as much as $15,000 a year to send their preschoolers to English, piano, dance, art, and gymnastics classes. And that’s just in Wuhan, not Beijing or Shanghai.
Contrary to their true desire to have a second child, Zhou and his wife were extremely worried about the economic aspect. The couple currently had a t-shirt business but the business was unstable.
"If we have a second child and the business doesn't do well, my son's quality of life will go down and I won't be able to provide good things for both of them at the same time. In addition, having two children will also make it more difficult for me to go to work."
This is a common situation in China, where parents give all the best to their only child.
Wang Feng, a sociologist at the University of California, Irvine, said Chinese parents often have only one wish: for their children to move up the social ladder or at least not be stuck in the middle of life. The issue here is no longer about feeding and educating, but about being successful and having a better life.
Zeng Yulin (right), Zhang Dongyuan and their 3-year-old daughter in a park in Wuhan.
Zeng Ylin, 32, who has a master's degree in international economics, takes her nearly 4-year-old daughter, Yuewei, to art classes every day and ice skating classes twice a week. There are also singing classes and classes that specialize in public speaking. Zeng even teaches her daughter English at home.
“I just hope that my daughter can maintain my current status and standard of living,” Zeng said, sitting on the floor of the central library. “If she has the chance, I hope she can go even further.”
Zeng's husband, who works in construction, wants to have more children, but Zeng believes her husband does not earn enough money to make that possible.
Zeng family feed pigeons in the park.
Zhou and Zeng are representative of the vast majority of parents in China today. In a 2017 survey of working mothers on zhaopin.com, the country’s largest job-search website, only 22.5 percent said they wanted a second child. Nearly triple that number said they didn’t want more than one child.
Realizing that the new policy did not bring about the desire or desire to have children, Chinese leaders had to go back to the work of drafting and planning new policies.
At the National People’s Congress in March this year, representatives from provinces and cities across the country gathered to discuss the issue. One delegate proposed that the legal age of marriage be lowered by two years, to 20 for men and 18 for women. Another suggested that families with a second child receive special subsidies to help with living expenses, while another suggested establishing a “Chinese Children’s Day” on May 28 every year. Others even proposed raising taxes or imposing fines on childless couples, prompting many women to begin to fear that abortion would be banned.
Provincial governments are also starting to take action, with Hubei (which includes Wuhan and Nanchuan) being seen as the frontrunner in encouraging childbirth. The province has built more than 2,500 maternity homes. Many cities are offering free medical care for those who have a second child, while others are offering a $180 bonus for those who have a second child.
Some places, like Nanchuan village, where Liu works, even offer free prenatal checkups and pregnancy care services.
But even rural areas are seeing a real decline in birth rates. There were 504 babies born in the town in 2016, then 477 in 2017 and just 460 last year.
Liu couldn't even convince Tang Xu, a Communist Party member, to have a second child. Tang said that despite the government's new policy, having children was simply too expensive.
They won’t have enough money to send their children to art classes, piano lessons, or extra classes while they are still trying to buy a house for their son, who is supposed to continue the family line and take care of them when they are old. And their daughter will get married and move into her husband’s house. The thought of having to buy two properties for her children is unthinkable.
Zhang Yuewei and her father were playing bumper cars in the park.
“In China, if you don’t buy a house for your son, he won’t get married,” said Ms. Zhang, who drives a taxi to earn extra income so she can buy an apartment for her son, who is in his 20s.
She added a familiar Chinese proverb before ending the story: "Having two children is like shedding your own skin."
