Abstract
The Chinese government is now pushing women to have two children but, as
“One child is already exhausting me,” she said. “You have no idea how expensive it is to raise a child these days. Another one? No way!”
Her mother-in-law was not happy. “While the government now allows a second child, I don’t understand why you don’t accept it with great joy,” she said. “Women of my generation were never given that choice.”
After lunch, my cousin and I had a walk in the small town where we grew up. Three years since China announced the replacement of the one-child policy with a two-child policy, I couldn’t see any sign of the old slogans that used to be painted on the walls of people’s homes or the red banners that hung in business areas, saying either “giving birth to fewer and healthy children makes a happy life” or “[the government] advocates marrying late and having children late”. Instead, colourful posters with baby images and slogans such as “[welcome] a new era of [the] two-child policy” are now on bulletin boards in front of local government buildings.
Relaxation of birth control should be a good thing, but not in this way. The Chinese government has not loosened the policy to give women autonomy over their own reproductive rights. Instead its change of policy is the result of demographic fears about an ageing society. For years, double-digit GDP growth has helped the ruling Chinese Communist Party to maintain its political legitimacy. The government is now worried that a shrinking labour force could make the already slowing economy even more gloomy, and the demographic crisis has become one of the party’s biggest concerns.
There are many signs that China is launching a new campaign to persuade women to have two children. In August, a subway in Changsha, Hunan province, controversially posted a pink advertisement that read “1001 reasons to have babies” throughout the train carriages. State media newspaper People’s Daily published an op-ed recently arguing that “to have babies is not only the business of a family, but also of the country”. In some provinces, the local government has tightened the requirements for couples to be able to divorce to keep alive the possibility of new offspring.
Rumours are spreading, too. Stories on social media such as “more restriction on buying condoms and oral contraceptive pills” or “hospitals refuse to carry out abortions” have gone viral. Most of these have proven false or inaccurate. But in a country where the decision-making process is far removed from the average woman’s life, rumours related to birth control run rampant. People, including my cousin, worry that such bizarre stories could one day become true, not least given the recent past.
Chinese women are always told to do what we “should do” rather than what we want to do. Women’s voices are never respected, whether it’s my grandmother’s generation or mine. Shortly after the Communist Party took power (in 1949), my grandmother was told by the government that mothers with many children were “heroine mothers” because Mao wanted the country to be prepared for any potential wars. My grandmother had nine children (two later died). Then my mother’s generation was told that China’s development couldn’t be sustained with an explosive population. The national goal was to “improve the quality of the population” and the one-child policy was the answer. My mother and her friends had no privacy: the local officials ordered all women with one child to be fitted with a contraceptive ring and they were checked regularly in hospital to see that they were still in place. If they broke the rule and had an “illegal child” the government would send them to be sterilised.
I grew up with horrifying stories: women in late-month pregnancy who were forced to have abortions; female infants who were killed or abandoned due to a traditional preference for boys. Both my cousin and I were illegal second children and we saw how the officials chased our parents for fines for “breaking the rule”.
And now, women of my generation, born during the one-child policy, are expected to have more children because our country is facing a demographic crisis.
A real feminist movement could be one way for Chinese women to speak out. However, the Chinese government has clamped down on the movement, harassing and arresting prominent feminists.
The pressure to get married and have babies also comes from family and society. Traditional culture regarding gender roles remains strong. Women are expected to take care of family and woman poses in a children. Terms such as “leftover women” have emerged, levelled at women over the age of 27 who remain single, and women who seek gender equality are called names such as “feminist bitch”. These terms shame and silence women.
A pregnant woman poses in a swimming pool in Shanghai, China in 2014
CREDIT: Carlos Barria/Reuters
Like my cousin’s mother-in-law, many older Chinese people still believe in the traditional value of “more children, more happiness and luck”. In the small northern town where I come from, girls marry as soon as they finish school and get pregnant shortly after. Any exception would be gossiped about. Since the two-child policy began, the pressure has increased. I am turning 30 next year. The number scares my parents. I have no marriage plans and children are not on any to-do list. The topics of marriage and children have become the source of many fights between myself and my parents. I feel that to remain single and childless is committing a crime in the eyes of some.
Right now, the two-child policy hasn’t stopped plummeting birthrates. According to the National Bureau of Statistics, 630,000 fewer people were born in 2017 than in 2016. A recent survey done by the All-China Women’s Federation shows that only 20.5% of married couples with a child are willing to have a second. Although the two-child policy has not yet increased China’s birth rate, it has caused other, negative, results. China Daily said the two-child policy was making it more difficult for women to find jobs. Women have long been discriminated against in the job market. In a survey conducted in 2014 by the Women’s Studies Institute of China (WSIC), 86.18% of female graduates in Beijing, Hebei and Shandong have experienced gender discrimination in finding jobs. Employers don’t hesitate to ask female job seekers about their plans for marriage and maternity leave. With the two-child policy, employers prefer male employees, worrying women with one child will take maternity leave again soon for another.
Disadvantage in the job market could weaken women’s voices further, especially within marriage. A recent study published in Chinese Sociological Review shows women with less marital power are likelier to succumb to pressure to have a second child even if they do not want to. The findings also show that motherhood is a major contributor to the gender pay gap.
In my cousin Chunting’s case, her husband agrees with her decision not to have another child. It’s a relief for now. But what if one day he changes his mind? How could she speak up and resist? She depends on him financially. If that happens, she will either have to accept it or face an unpleasant marriage, neither of which are the positive, empowering outcomes she wants to see.
The online version of this article was amended on December 18th to correct an inaccuracy in the text. The original standfirst read ‘The Chinese government is now telling women they should have two children…’. This has now been changed to ‘The Chinese government is now pushing women to have two children…’.