Having children is expensive in China; families that earn less than 50,000 yuan per year spend 70% of their income on their children.
for more babies. After decades of restricting population growth with its one-child policy, which was imposed in 1980 and gradually eased before being totally scrapped in 2016, the country is now burdened with a rapidly ageing population and spiralling health and pension costs. The government has introduced several measures to boost the country’s flagging fertility rate.
The latest abortion policies are not entirely new. A previous version of the guidelines for “Women’s Development”, issued in 2011, contained similar language. Concrete measures to restrict women’s access to abortion on a national level have so far been limited. But given the state’s history of interfering with women’s bodies—from forced abortions to sterilisations—many Chinese are suspicious of any attempt to dictate their family planning.
But none of these nudges tackle the main reason for China’s declining fertility rate: people want fewer children. Mothers often report being discriminated against at work after they have a child, making the prospect of having another less desirable. And the cost of bringing up a child can be extortionate. A report in 2019 found that a family in Shanghai could expect to spend 840,000 yuan on their little prince or princess from birth to the age of 15.
It will take many years to undo the cultural changes wrought by the one-child policy, including the view of abortion as a form of contraception. Other countries that have tried to raise fertility rates have shown how hard that can be once small families have become the norm. They have also shown that restricting access to abortion doesn’t lower the number of terminations. It just pushes them underground.
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