The new 3-child policy doesn’t convince Chinese couples
Faced with a worrying demographic crisis of its own making, China is encouraging couples to have more children. There's just one problem: women aren't too keen on the idea.
For more than 35 years, the ruling Communist Party strictly enforced a one-child policy, as the country tried to address overpopulation and alleviate poverty. But as the economy boomed, China found its population ageing and its labour force shrinking.
To mitigate the economic risks posed by falling birth rates, the party announced in 2015 that it would allow married couples to have two children. But after a brief uptick in 2016, the national birth rate has been falling year on year, prompting the party to loosen the policy even further to three children.
Still, the public doesn't appear convinced. On Friday, the formal passing of the country's new three-child policy into law was met with widespread scepticism and criticism on Chinese social media. Many women expressed anxiety over the rising cost of living and entrenched gender inequality in the workplace.
Many argued that raising three children would be prohibitively expensive and out of reach for most urban couples, many of whom face stagnating wages, fewer job opportunities, and gruelling hours at work.
"I don't even want to have one child, let alone three," said one comment on Weibo, China's heavily censored Twitter-like platform, which garnered more than 51,000 likes.
Though wealth inequality and overwork are problems seen around the world, in China, they are exacerbated by entrenched gender roles that often place the bulk of housework and childcare on women.
"Will men have paternity leave for their three children, then?" one person wrote pointedly on Weibo, with more than 67,000 likes. There is currently no national law that provides paternity leave in China.
That imbalance in parental responsibility means it's difficult for women to balance work with motherhood. Ever since the proposal for the three-child policy was announced earlier this year, much of the debate has centred on fears that it could ultimately worsen conditions for working women.
In recent years, many Chinese women have reported facing job discrimination based on their marital or parental status, with employers who are often reluctant to pay maternity leave.
A report by Human Rights Watch earlier this year, which drew on studies, social media reports, news coverage, court documents, and interviews, found that women in some companies are told to wait their turn to take maternity leave; if they become pregnant ahead of "schedule," they can be fired or punished.
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