In China, intrusive canvassing by authorities to encourage women to have children

In a street in Beijing, January 17, 2024. PEDRO PARDO / AFP The first call surprised her a little, the second frankly annoyed her. Ms. Mao, a teacher from Jiangsu province, is almost 30 years old and married. The first time, in May, the neighborhood committee employee was not very insistent on the phone. She certainly wanted to know if she was planning to have a child, but since that wasn’t the case in the short term, she just took the liberty of reminding him of the importance of taking folic acid during the early stages of pregnancy. pregnancy, if she had this plan later. The second time she was called, in October, another local official immediately asked her when she had her last period. Ms. Mao found this frankly intrusive, and in any case she no longer had the precise date in mind, to which the person on the line replied that they would contact her in a few weeks to find out her cycle. “They think they’re the menstrual police? It’s completely inappropriate, it’s my private life,” she takes offense. Despite the irritated tone taken by the professor, the agent of the neighborhood committee, the level closest to the citizen in the Chinese administration, did not hesitate to add more by asking if she had any pets. . And to emphasize the risks of transmission of toxoplasmosis. “The government would do better to focus more on reducing the cost of raising a child,” comments the young woman. The one-child policy has left its mark Like it, more and more Chinese women of childbearing age are receiving this type of call from the local administration. The State is seriously concerned about the demographic situation in the country. The fertility index, the number of children per woman, fell to 1.09 in 2022, synonymous with rapid demographic decline, while the level to maintain a stable population is 2.1 children. By 2023, China’s population will decline by 2 million people, falling behind that of India. A United Nations prospective study, World Population Prospects, concluded in July 2024 that the Chinese population will decline by more than 200 million people between 2024 and 2054, then that, by 2100, it could have fallen by more than half. compared to its current level of 1.4 billion. Read also | Article reserved for our subscribers The upheavals of China through the prism of the “World” Read later In fact, it is rare to come across Chinese people wanting more than one child. Between 1980 and 2016, the one-child policy made it illegal to have more. Omnipresent in propaganda for more than three decades, it has left a lasting impression, even if the Chinese recognize its success in accelerating the demographic transition. Economic development in the meantime has significantly increased the costs of raising a child, while with rising levels of education and the necessary focus on careers, Chinese people are starting to consider parenthood much later. Without a sufficient social safety net on which to support their family, and with women also fearing discrimination in their jobs, few people feel they can afford the luxury of having more than one child, particularly due to the cost of housing in the city and of early childhood care. You have 59.17% of this article left to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.



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