Chinese women have had it. Their response to Beijing’s demands for more children? No.
Fed up with government harassment and wary of the sacrifices of child-rearing, many young women are putting themselves ahead of what Beijing and their families want. Their refusal has set off a crisis for the Communist Party, which desperately needs more babies to rejuvenate China’s aging population.
With the number of babies in free fall—fewer than 10 million were born in 2022, compared with around 16 million in 2012—China is headed toward a demographic collapse. China’s population, now around 1.4 billion, is likely to drop to just around half a billion by 2100, according to some projections. Women are taking the blame.
In October, Chinese Leader Xi Jinping urged the state-backed All-China Women’s Federation to “prevent and resolve risks in the women’s field,” according to an official account of the speech.
“It’s clear that he was not talking about risks faced by women but considering women as a major threat to social stability,” said Clyde Yicheng Wang, an assistant professor of politics at Washington and Lee University who studies Chinese government propaganda.
The State Council, China’s top government body, didn’t respond to questions about Beijing’s population policies.
I have several very close friends who are Chinese. Some from near Shanghai some from near Beijing. The reason they explain is much more cultural and not capitalist as some here suggest.
For one, it is extremely rough on women because young men act very spoiled and men in general have an abusive problem there. So they don’t want to have kids with these men and they don’t want to marry them either. Women are getting married much later with it not being completely unheard of to be 30 and unmarried anymore in China.
Second, it is also hard on women because of family. When they get married the man’s family is their new family essentially and they lose support from their blood family. This can be tough especially if the husbands family hates the woman (not that rare).
Third, divorce is still rare because of the culture of stick through it and be a good wife. Divorce is also hard when you have kids and there’s a lot of pressure to have kids right away when you get married. This is changing but it’s slow.
Finally, we arrive at feminism. This is a good change and women are realizing all the cultural problems and see they can be happier on their own and make big money on their own too. So why get married, why have kids when you can be happy by yourself?
So all in all it’s not bad changes, these are cultural changes most countries go through and I’m happy for the Chinese women and hope all goes well. If you have any questions or want me to elaborate just let me know.
Considering your first point, it might be more effective to train young men in how to be attractive husbands and co-parents than to pressure women to just lay back and think of China.
The capitalism part is culture too. You’re just describing the traditional capitalist practices of treating women like commodities to use as a type of fuckable home appliance. You’re using cultural language to describe commodity trade, inheritance, reproduction of human capital, property ownership, and the fact that only men were “real people” who could own capital.
I understand what you’re saying, but these Chinese cultural aspects go back far further than modern capitalism.
They are part of trade too. Dowry paid, women as furniture/appliances, trading owners from father to husband. This is all part of the economy in trade and capitalism.
Hence modern capitalism. If trade in general is capitalism then every system is capitalism
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