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Having a child in China is for many parents juggling work and family life with little state aid, a complicated equation that partly explains the drop in births in the country.
China announced on Tuesday that its population had fallen last year, the first in six decades. The beginnings of a demographic crisis that could curtail growth and weigh heavily on public finances.
In an attempt to encourage births, local authorities pay parents monthly family allowances, birth bonuses sometimes exceeding 1,000 euros or even offer facilities for the purchase of an apartment.
But the hectic pace of society, the pressure of the world of work, the cost of education, coupled with the desire to give the best possible conditions to their offspring dissuade many couples from having more children.
“Many households already find it extremely difficult to raise just one“, declares Wenjing, a thirty-year-old blogger specializing in parenthood and who considers state aid to be very insufficient.
“With the pandemic, a lot of couples have really suffered financially. And decided not to have another child,” she says.
After decades of a one-child policy, all Chinese couples can have three children since 2021.
Major cities like Beijing and Shanghai have extended maternity leave to 158 days, 60 more than the national norm. Health authorities are also urging local communities to build more nurseries.
Custody and breastfeeding
But a place in a private kindergarten can cost between 5,000 and 20,000 yuan per month (685 and 2,700 euros) in Beijing, according to the Asia Society Policy Institute.
Many young urbanites also live far from their families, in other provinces, which often does not allow grandparents to help the couple take care of the grandchildren.
For Nancy (not her real name), a young mother in her thirties who works in e-commerce in Beijing, balancing her job and her child’s education has become a herculean task.
“Impossible for me to find a balance“, she told AFP.
“If you want to breastfeed your child, you can’t have a job“because it’s impossible to take her to the office,”but we can’t afford to resign given our financial situation“, she underlines.
Parents in China often focus their attention on one child to maximize their chances of success in a fiercely competitive society. A phenomenon that has contributed to the decline in births, according to Nancy.
“Of course, if your ambitions are a little lower, you will be less tired. But most people take their children seriously“, she adds.
“If you leave work at 5 p.m. to take care of your child, you may be given less work and your colleagues may pass you by“in terms of opportunities,” she points out.
“Exploitation”
Many couples rely on their family members to get by.
“If people of my generation can go to work, it is largely through the exploitation of our parents, who help us raise the children for a few years.“, emphasizes Nancy.
This is also the case for Ivy Meng.
This young thirty-year-old explains to AFP that her son was “raised largely by his grandparents“During the pandemic, when schools were closed and she and her husband were working full time.
A situation that continued with the end of the epidemic, Ivy having chosen to privilege her work.
“I don’t care too much about my son’s education“, she confesses. “I come home very late at night and I don’t see him too much“.
She considers herself lucky: many couples have no family support.
For demographers, if the state wants to boost births, it must provide more support to young parents and help reduce the cost of raising children.
Because for many Chinese, the pressure is just too much.
“No matter how much the government pays or if they give me a better environment (for education), I don’t wish to have another child“says Nancy.
“It’s not a problem that can be solved with money“.