cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/4197518
Historically, China’s government influenced family planning, enforcing the one-child policy. This policy involved harsh fines and forced abortions. Today, the focus has shifted, encouraging families to have more children. As China faces an aging population, the government sees this as an economic necessity.
Officials have begun knocking on doors, asking women about their family planning intentions. Many report being questioned about personal details. These questions reflect the shift from limiting families to promoting larger ones.
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The government is collaborating with universities to promote marriage and childbirth. Leaders also stress this message at political gatherings, urging women to have children. This push makes it harder for women to ignore state pressure.
In many cases, officials visit homes to track women’s progress after childbirth. Some are even asked to pose for photographs with their babies for official records. These actions make many women uncomfortable, crossing into personal boundaries.
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Many women feel these efforts are disconnected from reality. The cost of raising children is high in urban China, making large families unrealistic for most. Career demands and personal goals further complicate the decision to have children.
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China is not only trying to increase birth rates. The government also wants to change the culture around family. They promote a “new marriage and childbearing culture.” Once tasked with limiting births, family planning associations are now encouraging families to grow.
Health and Government Surveillance
For many women, government involvement begins even before marriage. Officials often monitor couples’ plans after free health screenings. During these appointments, women receive advice on when to have children. Many women later receive calls encouraging them to pick up free prenatal supplements.
This monitoring doesn’t end with marriage. Government websites advise pregnant women to register at community health centers, which are run by local officials and keep track of pregnancies. Some women appreciate the support, but others find it intrusive. The constant check-ins feel like surveillance rather than care.
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I suspect we may see a lot of countries get pushy about trying to encourage people to have kids. There were lots of short term economic benefits to pushing families into having both partners working, but in the long term countries are still built around needing a growing population to do well.
You can offset lower birthrates with immigration to an extent, but itherwise we would need pretty major social changes to sustain society if birth rates continue to decline.
We don’t need a growing population, but it can’t shrink fast. We can probably even handle a slow shrinking, but a birth rate of .6 (which some countries are getting to) is low enough to be a real problem. Stable population needs a birthrate of a bit over 2 (1 child for every adult, and a few extra to account for accidents - how much extra depends on factors like how good your medical care is).
Of course the above is statistics. Some people have terrible genetics and shouldn’t have kids. Many people would be terrible parents (but few are willing to admit it is them - ironically many who will admit it would be good parents). And raising kids is takes a lot of effort (it isn’t as expensive as those without kids think, but it does take a lot of time) - all good parents have to give up a ton of things they currently do (in countries with the worst birth rates this is often working too many hours, but even countries with reasonable working hours are seeing concerningly low birth rates) .