China’s Young People Not Having Children Despite Incentives

Medical personnel are caring for a newborn.(People News)

[November 11, 2024] Despite the CCP relaxing the one-child policy nearly a decade ago, China’s birth rate continues to decline, and the number of young people registering for marriage has also reached new lows. Although the CCP has introduced various measures to boost the birth rate, Western experts say there are multiple reasons why Chinese people are not having children, and there is no “silver bullet” for raising the birth rate.

China's Birth and Marriage Rates Hit Record Lows

Since the CCP’s implementation of the “one-child policy” nationwide in 1980, China’s birth rate has been in sharp decline. According to World Bank data, in 2022, China’s fertility rate (the number of children born per woman) was 1.2, lower than the U.S. rate of 1.7, which benefits from a more open immigration policy.

According to data released by China’s National Bureau of Statistics in January this year, China’s population at the end of 2023 was 1.40967 billion, a decrease of 2.08 million from the previous year. The number of births also dropped further to 9.02 million, 540,000 fewer than in 2022, reflecting the accelerated shrinkage of China’s population in recent years.

In July, the United Nations predicted that by 2100, China could lose more than half of its population, making it the country with the steepest population decline.

Meanwhile, an analysis by Nomura Securities of official data released this month shows that new marriage registrations in the third quarter fell by 25% year-on-year, indicating that the total number of marriage registrations in China this year will drop to 6.4 million, the lowest since 1979.

Austin Schumacher, assistant professor of health metric sciences at the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, told CNBC that China’s share of global live births is expected to decrease from 8% in 2021 to around 3% by 2100.

The CCP has introduced various unusual methods to increase the birth rate. In addition to recent measures from the State Council offering incentives for childbirth and housing, reports have emerged of grassroots departments calling citizens with “birth-promotion” phone calls. In some cases, officials from “birth-promotion offices” even visited homes to admonish young people, calling them “sinners for the ages” if they don’t have children, leading to public mockery.

Multiple Factors Behind China's Low Birth Rate

Harry Murphy Cruise, an economist at Moody’s Analytics, told CNBC that the “psychological legacy” of the one-child policy still lingers, fundamentally altering young people’s views on family.

He added that economic slowdown is also causing “young people to reconsider or postpone their plans to start a family.”

For Chinese families, an increasingly pressing factor is income insecurity in raising children.

In recent years, China’s economy has slowed, dragged down by the real estate slump and the impact of the zero-COVID policy, which severely hurt the economy. Additionally, the CCP’s ongoing crackdown on tutoring, gaming, finance, and internet platform companies has affected recruitment in industries that were previously popular with new graduates.

China’s youth unemployment rate (measuring individuals aged 16-24 not in school) reached a record high of 18.8% in August. While it fell slightly in September, it remained the second-highest.

“The real issue is that people don’t have confidence in making a living, let alone considering raising children,” Sheana Yue, an economist at Oxford Economics, told CNBC.

“No Silver Bullet” to Boost Birth Rates

Last month, the CCP announced a high-level plan to offer subsidies and tax breaks for families with children under the age of three. These measures would also extend maternity leave from 98 to 158 days. Last year, the CCP doubled the child tax deduction to 2,000 yuan ($280) per month.

Ms. Ma, 39, from Nanjing, has a 4-year-old child. She told Voice of America that she would not consider having a second or third child because the cost of children’s education is very high, and the government’s incentives do not interest her at all.

She mentioned that transporting and caring for her child is a major issue. Many parents are only children themselves, meaning one family has to support four elderly parents plus a child, creating enormous pressure. “Almost no one has three children nowadays; one is enough.”

Ms. Xu, 40, who works in media in Guangzhou, and her husband have chosen to be “DINKs” (Dual Income, No Kids). She told Voice of America that raising children in China is too expensive, and she cannot afford the “sky-high nursery fees.” Another issue is the “sky-high school district housing costs.”

Xu also believes that having a child means being responsible for them. Since she cannot provide an excellent educational environment that would allow a child to thrive amid fierce competition, she would rather not bring them into the world. Not wanting to be tied down by children is another reason.

Lu Chenwei, a researcher at the Taiwan Institute for National Defense and Security, told Voice of America that China’s low birth rate has evolved from a government-imposed one-child policy to an endogenous issue of “unwillingness and fear of having children.” This shift is mainly driven by two factors: changes in China’s overall socioeconomic environment and shifts in gender values among women.

“This is an extremely challenging task, and there is no silver bullet for boosting the birth rate,” said Moody’s economist Cruise.

According to China Population and Employment Statistics Yearbook 2023, as of 2022, China’s single population exceeded 240 million and is likely to reach 300 million by the end of 2024, meaning nearly one in four people will be single.

China’s economy not only faces weak post-pandemic recovery but also an aging population issue, and the persistently low birth rate is further impacting the economy.

Editor: Ye Ziwei