Facts of life upended again

Software developer Tang Huajun loves playing with his two-year-old in their apartment on the outskirts of Beijing but says he is unlikely to be a father for a second time.

Such decisions by countless people like Tang will determine the course not only of China's population but that of the world, which the United Nations projects has hit eight billion.

Tang, 39, says many of his married friends have only one child and, like him, they are not planning any more. And younger people aren't even interested in getting married, let alone having babies.

The high cost of childcare is a major deterrent in China, with many families in an increasingly mobile society unable to rely for help on grandparents who could live far away.

"Another reason is that many of us get married very late and its hard for wives to get pregnant," Tang says.

China was for decades preoccupied with the prospect of runaway population growth and imposed a strict one-child policy from 1980 to 2015. But now the UN expects its population to start shrinking from next year, while India becomes the world's most populous country.

China's fertility rate of 1.16 in 2021 compared to the 2.1 OECD standard for a stable population and is among the lowest in the world.

The anguish of the pandemic and Beijing's strict measures to try to stamp it out may also have had a profound impact on the desire of many people to have children, demographers say.

New births are set to fall to record lows this year, dropping below 10 million from last year's 10.6 million - which was already 11.5 percent lower than in 2020.

Beijing last year began allowing up to three children, and leaders were said to be working toward achieving an "appropriate" birth rate. That's because a shrinking population poses a whole new set of problems.

"We expect the aging population to increase very rapidly," notes Chinese University of Hong Kong professor Shen Jianfa. "This is a very important situation facing China - different to 20 years ago."

The proportion of the 65 and overs is now about 13 percent but is set to rise sharply. A declining labor force faces an increasing burden of looking after the rising numbers of old folk.

"It will be very high for some years," Shen says of the elderly proportion. "That's why China has to prepare."

China has been trying to encourage couples to have more children with tax breaks and cash handouts as well as more generous maternity leave, medical insurance and housing subsidies.

But demographers say the measures are not enough. They cite high education costs, low wages and notoriously long working hours, along with frustration over Covid curbs and the overall state of the economy.

A key factor is job prospects for young people, says Hong Kong University of Science and Technology professor Stuart Gietel Basten. "Why would you have more babies when the people you have cannot even get jobs?"

REUTERS