The growing number of Chinese women who are prioritizing their careers over building a family, undermining the efforts of Chinese authorities to boost the birth rate, was the focus of a recent feature in the French media.
Xiao Yuan broke up with her “boyfriend” last July, but she was careful not to tell her “tiger mother,” reports French newspaper Le Figaro’s Faletti. “She asked me about my boyfriend’s salary, information about his studies.” The fatalistic young female employee of an audiovisual company appoints that the stress of marriage will begin around age 28. She lives alone in an apartment in the art and business district of Tianhe, in the bustling metropolis of Guangzhou in southern China.
She has more than two years to catch her breath before her parents, who live in the conservative Guangdong mountains, start putting together a string of blind dates with well-qualified suitors found from various connections. But Shaw didn’t wait for the giant axe to come down before challenging his family. She boldly said, “I told my mother I didn’t want children. I love handsome boys, and I want to find a double-income, childless dink,” she said boldly, quoting the American acronym, “Double Income No Kids,” which means “two salaries, no kids. “
Her goal is to enjoy the increasingly lively and fancy life of the “affluent” Chinese coastal metropolis while her parents “sacrifice” themselves for “family” and in the name of the second-largest economy in the country’s quest for growth rates. “herself.
My parents are very traditional: my mother is very strict, she inflicts physical and verbal violence on me,” says the 25-year-old. And my father doesn’t take care of me.” This kind of old ancestral family model, which when her turn came, made her not want to have children, is also a reflection of many of her friends.
An underlying trend: this radical choice is due first and foremost to financial resources and to ignoring the admonitions of the communist regime; the Chinese communist regime is trying to normalize China’s declining birth rate by questioning the one-child policy. This argument is not realistic in the eyes of this new generation of communities that advocate the fulfillment of personal hedonism in the present. To give your children a good education, you have to spend too much money,” explains Xiao. I don’t want to sacrifice my husband and my life to raise a child.”
Also sharing this concern is Ouyang Zhezhe, a female college student in Beijing majoring in finance, who decided not to get pregnant and have children as soon as she reached the age of 17.
I could consider getting married because sometimes I feel lonely, but I can’t afford to be responsible for a child,” the 20-year-old said in her college dorm room. Besides, maternity leaves physical marks.” She is also prioritizing her career. She also condemned the growing number of cases of abuse against women, pointing to the pregnant Shaanxi woman who jumped out of a window and killed herself in 2017 after her mother-in-law denied her the option of a broken birth, leading to a bitter argument.
Yi Fuxian, a demographer at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s School of Social and Economic Sciences, noted that this is a fundamental trend in China. Most young people (girls or boys) want only one child, or none at all.
These young girls from developed metropolitan areas “are an avant-garde minority in the most populous country in the world,” far less numerous than the large rural population, most of whom still do not have secondary education.
But they are indicative of the inevitable transformation that is taking place in Chinese society, and it is clear that society as a whole is inexorably following in the footsteps of the developed countries with aging populations. This poses a major demographic challenge to those in power in China.
This is a fundamental trend in China, according to Fuxian Yi, a demographer at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s School of Social and Economic Sciences. Most young people (girls or boys) want only one child, or none at all. This revolution shows a 10-year delay in the age of marriage, from 23 to 28 from 2010 to 2020, and marks a sharp escalation in traditional rituals and the cost of living.
In China, the purchase of an apartment and a car are prerequisites for marriage,” according to Richie Yee. But real estate prices and social pressures are discouraging young people.” And in a still-traditional society, cohabitation between men and women is frowned upon.
Government measures ineffective
Ironically, Beijing implemented a draconian one-child policy in the late 1970s to stop the population bomb in people’s minds, which also forced everyone to adopt the idea of reducing family size. But it undermined the authorities’ attempt to do just the opposite today in trying to revive fertility.
The unprecedented experiment in human history has forever left a lasting psychological impact on a spoiled but often lonely, and rigidly “Little Prince” generation, paralyzed by the high expectations placed on them. I see a lot of husbands who suck,” says Ms. Shaw. They don’t clean the house, they don’t raise their kids together, they’re simply giant babies.”
Chinese sociologist Li Yin explains, “Mao Zedong’s voice ‘women hold up half the sky’ and encouraged them to play an active role in the proletariat. But the economic take-off, coupled with the influx of girls into universities, has torn apart the ancestral model, in which girls were confined to the home and being mothers. But now, Chinese women have the double burden of caring for their families while taking care of their careers. As a result, they delay conception as long as possible.”
Early on in this Confucian and highly competitive culture, parents spend a great deal of money on their offspring’s education at any cost, from the time their children are very young. Starting with piano lessons, for example, they demand that their only child be able to take piano lessons with the best teachers and are more than willing to devote resources to one child. Here they are following in the footsteps of other societies steeped in Confucianism, for example: the model of Korean, Taiwanese or Singaporean societies.
These alarming and stumbling realities, coupled with the desire for individual fulfillment of new generations, fall short of the party’s current birthrate claims. Under Xi Jinping’s leadership, there is a renewed desire to bring back this traditional value proposition, long trampled by the Cultural Revolution. The most authoritarian leader since Mao said, “The family is the basic unit of society and the school of life. No matter how lifestyles change, we must incorporate the basic values of socialism and promote the traditional family virtues of the Chinese nation.”
These historical spells have struggled to translate into fertility rates, despite the fact that China has approved a couple to have a second child since 2016. Since then, authorities have refused to adopt aggressive aid policies, and the birth rate has continued to decline.
Experts say this trajectory should continue. I think these government measures will hardly have an impact on our generation,” said Ouyang Cheol Cheol. This trend is expected to further accelerate the aging of the population, as the number of people over 60 has actually doubled in the last decade, which will have a negative effect on the socio-economic prospects of the reborn giant, China; it will become an “old man’s country” before it joins the ranks of the developed world.
The fact that a new generation of Chinese women are hesitant to have children also shows the limits of the Party’s ideological takeover of society orchestrated by Xi Jinping. Yi Fuxian firmly states, “The government can no longer treat people as ‘objects’; population is not something that you can turn on and off like water from a faucet.”
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