Big implications of fewer little ones

By Tiffany Tan (China Daily) Updated: 2014-04-27 08:42

The "Fun bridal chamber" in Wuhan Songziniao Hospital aims to encourage people to have children. Sun Xinming /For China Daily

A study of 1,236 childless women by the Chongqing Family Planning Research Institute found that almost 60 percent suffered infertility as a result of induced abortions.

For the millions of Chinese couples unable to bear children, another option is adoption.

Between 2008 and 2011, the period for which the most recent data is available, up to 90 percent of Chinese adoptees went to local families. The year 2009 saw a high of 39,801 domestic adoptions, the Ministry of Civil Affairs reports.

Xueli, a housewife in Hebei province, considered adopting when she could not get pregnant after three years of marriage. She had already tried traditional Chinese medicine treatments and had visited Buddhist temples to pray for a child.

"My in-laws would always talk about wanting a grandchild," says the 29-year-old, who refuses to publish her real name to protect her family's privacy.

"That stressed me out and hurt my feelings."

But Xueli never went down the adoption path since IVF blessed her family with twin boys last year. She has quit her sales job and now spends her days playing with her sons and watching them nap in the afternoon.

The growing reproduction problems of an aging Chinese society alarm some social scientists. Official data put China's birth rate at 1.5 births per woman - less than the 2.1 needed for a population to replace itself.

"The family unit won't last, and the country won't be able to sustainably develop," Yi Fuxian, a doctor-turned-demographer, says.

"Youthful vigor will decline, and there will be a labor shortage, while the proportion of the elderly who are dependent on social security will continue to grow.

"This is a threat to China's economic development," says Yi, author of The Empty Nest of a Big Country: Reflections on China's Family Planning Policy.

"China needs to maintain a birth rate of 2.3."

Other experts, meanwhile, think China's declining birth rate is a normal phenomenon of the 21st century.

"Low fertility is common in a fast-developing country like China," says Ting Kwok-fai, a sociology professor and director of the Center for Chinese Family Studies at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

"Some people say the family is in crisis. But I would say that this simply means the family has changed."

What China needs to work on, Ting says, is an appropriate response, such as improving the social security system and elderly care institutions.

As Linlin prepares for her eggs to be harvested, she can't help but think back to her marriage's early years.

She discovered she was pregnant one day, when she was in her mid-20s and only a few years out of nursing school.

She and her husband didn't feel financially secure enough to start a family, so they terminated the pregnancy.

Contact the writer at tiffany@chinadaily.com.cn

Xu Lin, Sun Ye, Wang Jingjing and Wang Peng contributed to this story.