Commentary: Invasive questions and threats will not persuade Chinese women to have children

HONG KONG: Imagine getting a phone call from a stranger asking you if you’re pregnant.

You’re about to hang up, but then the person says they’re from the Chinese government. They urge you to get pregnant, and if you already have kids, that you should have more.

This has been the experience of some women in China, who shared these bizarre exchanges on social media in October 2024.

Earlier this year, a company in Shandong made headlines for ordering single employees to get married by September or get fired. The company soon rescinded the ultimatum because it violated labour laws.

It will take much more than a call or a threat to persuade single women in China to get married or have children. China’s marriage rates fell by 20 per cent in 2024, the biggest drop on record. The country’s birth rates have been falling for decades, with its population shrinking for a third consecutive year in 2024.

CAREER WOMEN WHO WANT TO GET MARRIED

With China’s rapid urbanisation, women are staying later in school and spending more time on their careers, which impinges on their personal lives.

The more successful women become, the less time they have and the more difficult it is to find a marriage partner. The longer they wait, the fewer children they can have due to biological constraints.

However, there are educated career women who do want to get married. In my qualitative study on 50 women from Shanghai, all the women I spoke to wanted to get married, or were not against it.

Take Mabel for example, a 31-year-old from Henan province who works in a multinational software company in Shanghai.

“I have wanted to get married every year since I was 25. I think it is li suo dang ran (a given fact) … It was something I knew that had to be done inherently since I was a child.”

Many of the single women I’ve interviewed in my study are like Mabel. They want to get married and have a traditional mindset about starting a family, but they struggle with practical constraints such as the difficulty of finding partners.

The popular matchmaking reality show Fei Cheng Wu Rao (If You Are The One), running on Chinese national television since 2010, reflects the Chinese public’s interest in dating and romance. From time to time, successfully matched couples go on the show to discuss their relationship or marriage.

Instead of threatening people into marriage, companies could reintroduce the traditional concept of matchmaking by helping their single employees find matches among their own colleagues. That provides a better chance of finding someone with similar values, educational backgrounds and career trajectories.

Of course, these matchmaking programmes should be provided on a voluntary basis and aimed at eager singles who actually do want some help with finding love.

MARRIED COUPLES MAY NOT WANT CHILDREN

However, getting married and having children can be separate things for young couples today. Many Chinese women can support themselves and no longer see marriage as a means of fulfilling traditional obligations such as procreation. They will more likely have children if it fits with their personal plans.

The higher costs of living and raising a child in the city serve as considerable deterrents, as well as people’s tendencies to pursue more individualised lifestyles.

“I can’t believe I got pregnant right after I got married,” said Jingyi, a 27-year-old finance professional in Hangzhou. “I just bought a gym membership and planned to go travel the world with my husband.”

Needless to say, Jingyi did not have another child after her first one. She chose instead to renew her gym membership so she could get back into shape.

Young couples, especially women, need to be given more confidence that their careers and lifestyles won’t be overly compromised by having children.

Besides financial rewards such as one-off cash payouts, tax benefits and housing subsidies, more thoughtful incentives tailor-made for working mothers need to be implemented, such as onsite childcare in companies or free nurseries to take care of mothers’ well-being.

South Korea, having one of the lowest birth rates in the world, has rolled out free after-school programmes for elementary school students, and will soon provide school commute services to ease the burden of working parents.

Getting married and having children are among the biggest decisions in life, and most career women do want to "have it all" – both career and family.

In today’s era of instability and individualisation, what they need is a little nudge in that direction with more thoughtful and creative policies that genuinely put people’s needs and well-being at the fore. It is then that birth rates can climb back up and those dreaded phone calls be a thing of the past.

Sandy To is a sociologist who writes and speaks globally about women’s partner choices. She is the author of China’s Leftover Women: Late Marriage Among Professional Women And Its Consequences.