Chinese Women At The Crossroads Of The Beijing Government's Career And Three-Child Policy

Woman illustration. (Unsplash/East Meets Dress)

JAKARTA - Faced with an alarming demographic crisis, China is encouraging couples to have more children. There is only one problem, Chinese women are not very interested in the idea.

For more than 35 years, the ruling Communist Party has strictly enforced a one-child, one-family policy, as China moves to reduce overpopulation and reduce poverty. But as the economy booms, China finds its population aging and its workforce shrinking.

To mitigate the economic risks posed by a falling birth rate, the party announced it would allow married couples to have two children by 2015. But after a brief increase in 2016, the national birth rate has fallen year-on-year, prompting the party to relax policy. furthermore for three children.

However, the public seems unconvinced. The official passage of the country's new three-child policy into law on Friday was met with widespread skepticism and criticism on Chinese social media. With many women expressing anxiety over the rising cost of living and entrenched gender inequality in the workplace.

Baby illustration. (Unsplash/Patricia Prudente)

Many argue that raising three children will be very expensive, and beyond the reach of most urban couples, many of whom face stagnant wages, fewer job opportunities, and tiring hours.

"I don't even want to have one child, let alone three," read one comment on Weibo, China's heavily censored Twitter-like platform, which garnered more than 51,000 likes, citing CNN Aug. 26.

While wealth inequality and overwork are a visible problem worldwide, in China it is exacerbated by entrenched gender roles that often place a large part of domestic and childcare work on women.

"Then will the men get paternity leave for their three children?" one person wrote sharply on Weibo, with over 67,000 likes. There is currently no national law providing paternity leave in China.

The imbalance in parental responsibilities means it is difficult for women to balance work with motherhood. Since the proposal for a three-child policy was announced earlier this year, much of the debate has centered on concerns it could eventually worsen conditions for working women.

Baby illustration. (Unsplash/Carlo Navarro)

In recent years, many Chinese women have reported facing job discrimination based on their marital status or parents, with employers 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 women at several companies were told to wait their turn to take maternity leave. If they get pregnant ahead of 'schedule', they can be fired or punished.

Not surprisingly, many career-minded young women in China are becoming increasingly disillusioned with traditions and institutions such as marriage and childbirth.

"As a woman, I feel like I'm on an increasingly narrow path, and there is no turning back," the women's rights group wrote on Weibo on Thursday, in response to the new policy.

The Communist Party has acknowledged this problem and pledged to address it. The new amendments promise to protect women's right to work, saying the government will work with the private sector to set up child care facilities in public places and workplaces, state news agency Xinhua said.

The government will also "deploy more supportive measures in terms of finance, taxation, insurance, education, housing, and employment, to ease the burden on families," Xinhua added.

Baby illustration. (Unsplash/Luma Pimentel)

Meanwhile, the text of the amended family planning law is not yet publicly available. Articles by Xinhua and other state media did not provide further details on how the protective measures would be implemented, such as whether there would be tougher penalties for employers who discriminate against mothers.

Although a number of cities and provinces have already provided some of the measures called for by activists, such as Shanghai offering 10 days of maternity leave, they are still too limited, and far from the national reforms needed to lift the birth rate, some experts say.

To note, in 2019, the national birth rate reached its lowest level in 70 years since the founding of the People's Republic of China. The following year, the number of newborns fell another 18 percent.

That means the world's most populous country with 1.4 billion people has seen its fertility rate drop, from more than five births per woman to less than two, in just 40 years. It has one of the lowest fertility rates in the world, on par with Japan and South Korea, both of which are also facing a looming demographic crisis.

"If the state can't protect women's rights, but only encourages childbirth, it doesn't matter if the maternity leave is 98 days or three years, it's the same as taking away their careers," said Xu Chao, a doctor in Shandong.

For women in China, who have struggled for so long at work and who now enjoy relatively independent lives, having more children requires tremendous sacrifice, it takes more than a revision of laws to encourage a baby boom.