Younger couples opting out of costly parenthood

They are young, smart and well-educated members of a post-1980 generation who enjoy all the varied attractions of city life in Shenzhen. And although they love children, they decided against having any of their own because of insufficient social welfare protection for child care, health, education and housing, as well as the lifelong reality of harsh competition from preschool to the job market. Xiao Ling, a 27-year-old foreign trading company representative, said having her own baby was 'an accident' after two years of marriage. Unlike an overseas holiday or a new Chanel handbag, a baby had never been on Xiao's agenda. 'I probably would never have had my own daughter if I'd thought twice about it,' Xiao said. 'I paid about 20,000 yuan (HK$22,740) to deliver the baby through Caesarean section, which isn't covered by the government's health insurance scheme because I don't have Shenzhen permanent residency. 'The little angel burns my money round the clock, with formula milk, disposable diapers and a babysitter when we go to work. 'And that's only the beginning. I call it nightmare when you consider we're facing some 12,000 yuan in tuition fees for kindergarten every year, without any government subsidies at all. 'It's also very difficult to get a place in a reputable preschools. Children start their lifelong competition from kindergarten, and a kid's performance carries the whole family's hopes.' Xiao and her husband, a 32-year-old software engineer, do not own a flat and know they are facing the likelihood of high mortgage payments in the next few years to secure a new apartment next to a reputable primary school - the only way to ensure their daughter gets a place at the school and an early competitive advantage. Shenzhen has long suffered from shortages of kindergarten and school places due to insufficient government investment. Xiao's case neatly illustrates how the country leaves the major social cost of raising its next generation to parents, while levying heavy taxes on the public. In Shenzhen, parents have to pay all their children's medical fees for outpatient treatment, and compulsory education is not free for the city's migrant families. Those educational costs are huge when you consider that more than 85 per cent of Shenzhen's residents are migrants. Sociologists from Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou have been quoted by mainland media as saying that parents living in the three cities needed to spend some 450,000 yuan to 500,000 yuan to raise a child, 10 times a household's average annual income. Many city dwellers have long complained that raising a child is more difficult than buying a house in the booming property market. Similar to the 'house slaves', a colloquial term for those who have borrowed heavily from banks and relatives to buy an apartment, parents who have to spend a large part of their family income raising children are called 'child slaves'. To pay for their children's soaring living costs and school bills, young parents refrain from changing jobs, shy away from spending a cent on entertainment or travel and worry about falling ill. The lack of social welfare protection has resulted in falling fertility rates and Shenzhen has found it difficult to encourage couples to have their own child. Shenzhen's birth rate was 14.12 per 1,000 people in 2008, above the national and provincial averages, although official figures suggest it should be higher still because most of the city's population are in their 30s, regarded as an ideal age for raising a family. The country's overall birth rate has dropped from 21.06 babies per 1,000 people in 1990 to 14.03 babies in 2000 and 12.1 in 2007. Guangdong's birth rate in 2008 was slightly below the national average - 11.8 babies per 1,000 people. Yang Yansui, a professor at Beijing's Tsinghua University who focuses on mainland social security policy, says she believes a low birth rate among the well-educated, post-1980 generation could cost the country its future. 'The 'child slave' is a social phenomenon, partly due to the government's limited input in social welfare,' Yang said. 'A lack of resources devoted to education and the employment market forces children to compete with each other from preschool and this dramatically drives up under-the-table educational costs for places at reputable public schools.' Parents are usually required to donate tens of thousands of yuan to reputable schools every year or buy nearby properties before their children can get a place. 'Insufficient medical insurance and other social protection also put intense strain on young parents who are already burdened by other livelihood issues,' Yang said. The authorities had a long way to go to improve social welfare protection to encourage young professionals to have children, she added.