China Footprint: Why are couples opting not to have a second child?

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It’s a common scene now on the streets of Chinese cities where a pregnant woman manages a toddler, which is extremely common in other countries but quite new in China. The Chinese government implemented the Second-Child Policy in 2015, aiming to boost the birth rate.

Chen Wei, professor of demography at Renmin University of China, believes that the Second-Child Policy will not have a big influence on China's future population trend in the long term as Chinese women's fertility intention has radically changed.

CGTN Photo

In this case, despite the number of newborns increasing by 1.31 million in 2016, the result was still below expectations. According to Chen, there are mainly two reasons to explain why many couples are choosing not to have a second child.

Economic burden

Having a child means spending both on education and medical care. Many parents invest heavily on the education of their child. In addition to that, they also pay for extracurricular activities like painting, calligraphy, and learning to play the piano.

Childcare time

Work-family imbalance has always been a major issue for a family. Parents need to work, but also need lots of time to take care of their children.

CGTN Photo

Although the increase of population was below expectations, we have no doubt that the new second-child policy will help tackle problems like labor shortage and aging population, but effects will not show until after a few decades.

If all goes according to plan, the new policy is expected to add more than 30 million people to China’s working-age population by 2050.

Data show that 17.86 million babies were born in China in 2016, about 1.31 million more than the previous year. Health officials say that these numbers will pick up in the coming years. And then there’s the issue of the places to take care of the children and, of course, better education.

Allowing people to have a second child might not be enough. The key here might be finding enough incentives for them to do that.