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OOn May 31, after a Politburo meeting, Chinese authorities announced that all married couples would be allowed to have three children. The announcement comes more than five years after an earlier law went into effect allowing Chinese couples to have a second child.
On Weibo, the subject immediately became top trend, with the Xinhua News hashtag page on the issue (# 三 孩 生育 政策 来 了 #) from 800 million views to 2.2 billion views in just one hour Monday afternoon local time.
An illustrated image showing three small children was shared on social media by Xinhua, saying: “The policy of the three children is there!” Actively responding to an aging population, the Communist Party of China Central Committee called a meeting on May 31 to implement a policy for couples to have a third child and interrelated support measures.
State media Chinese Youth Daily also posted an image of two children playing on the floor, with the text saying, “The three-child policy has arrived. They will have a brother or a sister.
Easing policies and plummeting birth rates
Faced with the rapid aging of the population, China has been loosen its previous “one-child policy” for years.
China initiated the one-child policy in 1979 with the aim of controlling the country’s rapid population growth. He succeeded: the government estimates that it prevented more than 400 million more births. Politics have also been blamed for countless cases of forced abortions and compulsory sterilizations.
Ethnic minorities or couples in rural areas were already allowed to have more than one child if their firstborn was a girl. Since 2013, couples have the right to have a second child if they are an only child themselves. Richer families could also choose to have a second child and simply pay the hefty fine they would get for having another baby.
In October 2015, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) released an official statement that all couples would be allowed to have two children. This law came into effect on January 1, 2016. Although the new policy led to a brief “baby boom” – birth rates in China have reached their highest level since 2000 – the number has still not reached. government estimates and birth rates fell rapidly again. . In 2019, the birth rate of 10.48 per thousand Mark the lowest number since 1949.
More children, more stress?
When the change from the one-child policy to a “two-child policy” was announced in 2015, the expected change created a major buzz on social networks. While many people applauded the policy change, there were also those who believed that the end of the one-child policy came too late to counter the slow growth of the population.
“Many Chinese families cannot afford to have a second child,” was one of the most common online comments at the time. For many Chinese couples, only children, the daily pressure to care for their elderly parents and to bear the financial burden of their own household was already very high. “We need more financial support from the government so that we can really consider having a second child,” Chinese Weibo users said. said in 2015.
The introduction of a possible “three-child policy” first became a hot topic on Chinese social networks. in 2018. That year, Chinese bloggers and internet users denounced the potential measure by saying that an extension of a “two-child policy” to a “three-child policy” would increase the burden on Chinese women. Such a policy, they argued, would lead Chinese women faced with social expectations to give birth to a third child. And with supposedly longer maternity leave, they would also face unequal opportunities in the labor market.
But it is not just about the financial burden and the economic pressure. In a 2018 column for What’s new on Weibo, writer Frankie Huang highlighted that declining birth rates in China are often explained through an economic lens, while the social and historical context that has shaped the way young Chinese parents view family life today is perhaps more crucial to understand people’s decision to postpone a second child or avoid one altogether. “We need to consider how the one-child policy has made the one-child family normative by erasing the experience of having siblings from the lives of millions of people,” Huang wrote.
The “terrifying” era of the three children
Thinking back to the online sentiments that previously dominated Chinese social media, it is perhaps not surprising that many commentators on social media platforms in China today are somewhat skeptical about the introduction of a “Three-child policy” (三 孩 生育 政策).
Weibo poll by Chinese state media Xinhua ask “Are you ready for the three-child policy?” Was ridiculed by some when nearly 30,000 people replied, “I don’t plan to [three kids] at all ”, with only a few hundred people indicating a more positive stance on the policy. The poll was apparently deleted soon.
Many people raise issues and concerns about having multiple children, including those related to the position of women in the labor market, the high cost of child care, and the education of children.
A popular comment even suggested that the post-80 and post-90 Chinese generations deserve a medal if they actually had three children, which would mean that – as children themselves – they would have to look after four parents. old, three young, then continue to work while facing a gradually extended legal retirement age.
“The three-child policy is there, and it’s terrifying! a popular blogger on Weibo (@Alex 绝对 是 个 妞儿) writes: “A lot of the girls around me are already afraid of having a child, and I personally think having one is the limit – I didn’t expect politics to be so far ahead of its time ! No kidding, if other policies and guarantees of support are not in place, it will be very difficult to change women’s willingness to have children. It’s not that we don’t want kids, it’s not that politics doesn’t allow us to have kids, it’s that once we have kids, women’s lives go on. crumble and crumble, and that’s what makes women not want to have children. “
“It just gives my parents more reason to pressure me to find a partner,” others complained.
“It makes me crack. My monthly income is already barely enough to cover myself alone.
Besides those expressing concern, there are plenty of jokes circulating online, such as a supposed Durex ad saying, “I’m gonna go, have fun guys.”
In light of the new announcement, an older interview with Chinese businessman Shih Wing-ching (施永青), chairman of the Centaline Group, prompted some online controversy when he suggested that Chinese couples should only be allowed to use contraception after they have had two children. According to the real estate mogul, this would be an effective way to address declining fertility rates in China.
“It would be better if he wore a condom around his brain to protect it from these confusing thoughts,” suggested a Weibo commentator.
Another subject of public ridicule was the image announcing the “three children policy” by Chinese state media. Xinhua to contain a typo, the wrong character being used in the word 生育, “give birth to” (using 肓 instead of 育).
“Shouldn’t we eradicate illiteracy first before we allow people to have three children? one Weibo user jokingly commented.
Despite all the reviews and jokes online, there are also those who are really happy that having three children is now allowed for all couples. Recurring comments praise the freedom that comes with loosening family planning policies: “If you want to have more children, you can. If you don’t want to, you don’t have to. “
A woman on Weibo wrote, “When the two-child policy was introduced, I quickly became pregnant with my second child. Yesterday I was wondering if we could try to have a baby girl, and just like that, the “three child policy” is here!
Through Manya Koetse, with contributions from Miranda Barnes
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