https://www.scmp.com/rss/502824/feed en https://assets.i-scmp.com/static/img/icons/scmp-meta-1200x630.png https://www.scmp.com Luna Sun Luna Sun China’s marriage registrations edged up in 2025, offering a glimmer of hope for the birth outlook this year, but analysts caution that deeper demographic headwinds remain entrenched and difficult to reverse without broader policy support. China recorded 6.76 million marriage registrations nationwide in 2025, according to the Ministry of Civil Affairs, marking a 10.8 per cent increase from a year earlier, or 657,000 more couples. The number of marriage registrations is closely watched in China,... https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3343330/chinas-marriage-rebound-will-more-2025-knots-bring-more-baby-bumps-2026?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3343330/chinas-marriage-rebound-will-more-2025-knots-bring-more-baby-bumps-2026?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 13 Feb 2026 01:00:08 +0000 SCMP SCMP This article was first published on October 29, 2015 by Cary Huang China puts an end to its one-child policy The main­land will abol­ish its dec­ades-old, con­tro­ver­sial one-child policy and allow all couples to have two chil­dren, Com­mun­ist Party lead­ers said on October 29, 2015 after they wrapped up a four-day annual poli­cy­mak­ing meeting. The fifth plenum of the party’s 18th Cent­ral Com­mit­tee also endorsed a new five-year eco­nomic plan, accord­ing to a communique released by... https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/3330863/2015-china-announces-end-one-child-policy-scmp-archive?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/3330863/2015-china-announces-end-one-child-policy-scmp-archive?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 30 Oct 2025 09:36:43 +0000 Mandy Zuo Mandy Zuo A primary school in Shanghai has attracted national attention after its student body shrank to just 22 this year, highlighting the dramatic impact China’s plunging birth rate is having on the education system. Sanqiao Primary School in the Pudong New Area now has more full-time staff than pupils – with 22 children and 23 teachers – despite being located in one of China’s largest cities, according to enrolment data released on the local education authority’s website. The information was first... https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3323641/chinas-population-decline-laid-bare-shanghai-school-enrols-only-22-pupils?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3323641/chinas-population-decline-laid-bare-shanghai-school-enrols-only-22-pupils?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 29 Aug 2025 12:30:13 +0000 Zhou Xin Zhou Xin The Chinese government’s decision to provide a monthly subsidy of 300 yuan (US$40) to every newborn baby for three years marks an extraordinary turn in Beijing’s population policy. In a historical sense, it should be remembered as one of the most important moments in China’s social and economic policymaking. For many Chinese, memories of the state taking for granted China’s overpopulation problem are still fresh in their mind. After all, the country had implemented its infamous one-child policy... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/article/3320655/why-chinas-us40-monthly-subsidy-every-new-baby-big-deal?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/article/3320655/why-chinas-us40-monthly-subsidy-every-new-baby-big-deal?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 04 Aug 2025 23:00:15 +0000 Brian Rhoads,Raymond Ma Brian Rhoads,Raymond Ma China has launched its first national childcare subsidy scheme in an effort to help reverse a long-term decline in its population, which fell for a third consecutive year in 2024, to 1.4083 billion. Under the scheme, rolled out on Monday, parents will receive 3,600 yuan (US$502) annually for every child born on or after January 1, 2025, until they turn three. The subsidy is payable whether the child is their first, second or third. Children born before January 1, 2025 but still under three years... https://www.scmp.com/plus/article/3319968/chinas-us500-year-baby-subsidy-boost-population?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/plus/article/3319968/chinas-us500-year-baby-subsidy-boost-population?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 29 Jul 2025 09:00:09 +0000 Luna Sun Luna Sun China has announced its most significant central-level effort to reverse a deepening demographic crisis since allowing families to have three children, unveiling a long-awaited national childcare subsidy scheme that will provide up to 10,800 yuan (US$1,505) per child under the age of three. The move came amid mounting urgency among policymakers to stem the population decline and blunt its long-term drag on economic growth and social stability, after years of piecemeal local incentives that... https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3319872/china-launches-first-national-childcare-subsidies-bid-tackle-demographic-crisis?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3319872/china-launches-first-national-childcare-subsidies-bid-tackle-demographic-crisis?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 28 Jul 2025 11:48:50 +0000 When Tang Tang, a mother from Tianmen in central China, gave birth to her second child in December, it brought her family untold joy – and a thick wad of cash. Within months of leaving hospital, the local government paid Tang a 6,500-yuan (US$897) reward for having two children as part of a new birth subsidy scheme introduced last year. She will also receive an 800-yuan allowance every month until her new baby turns three. For a family in Tianmen, where income levels are far lower than in... https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3303756/why-china-betting-birth-subsidies-solve-its-population-crisis?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3303756/why-china-betting-birth-subsidies-solve-its-population-crisis?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 25 Mar 2025 22:00:09 +0000 To reverse a worrisome trend of deaths outpacing births in China, central authorities are being urged to look beyond merely trying to convince adults to procreate – the attention, leaders are now being told, should be on educating children. A top political adviser and leading demographer has proposed that China take action to protect fertility from the earliest stages of a person’s development, by making sexual-health education mandatory for school kids amid a demographic crisis that has... https://www.scmp.com/economy/policy/article/3301540/china-its-time-talk-sex-education-urged-children-adults-balk-babies?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/economy/policy/article/3301540/china-its-time-talk-sex-education-urged-children-adults-balk-babies?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 07 Mar 2025 13:30:08 +0000 Heidi Snyder was overcome with emotion as she recalled the moment she learned that China had abruptly ended its three-decade-long international adoption programme. “It felt like the death of a living child, honestly,” said the 39-year-old Illinois resident, her voice trembling with the weight of the memory from September last year. At that point, the Snyder family had been waiting for five years to bring home a little girl with special care needs – whom they had been legally matched with and... https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/3295248/aching-china-halted-foreign-adoptions-us-families-pin-hopes-donald-trump?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/3295248/aching-china-halted-foreign-adoptions-us-families-pin-hopes-donald-trump?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 17 Jan 2025 15:00:08 +0000 Zhou Xin Zhou Xin China’s central government last month issued a package of policies that provides various incentives to ease the costs of raising children amid a looming demographic crisis. To those who witnessed and experienced the mainland’s draconian one-child policy for over three decades, Beijing’s latest initiative to help cultivate a “birth-friendly society” marks quite an about-turn from the rigid enforcement of hefty fines and forced abortions during that Kafkaesque period. Ironically, the number of... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/china-opinion/article/3285146/chinas-bleak-demographic-condition-offers-harsh-lessons-policymakers?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/china-opinion/article/3285146/chinas-bleak-demographic-condition-offers-harsh-lessons-policymakers?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 04 Nov 2024 23:00:08 +0000 Wendy Liu has grown to dread the sound of her phone. These days, most calls mean a parent of the 47-year-old vocational school teacher has been rushed to the hospital. Whether her mother with Alzheimer’s disease or her father with cancer, any emergency means a long, anxious drive from work to her home in Guangzhou – a stress-ridden trip she has made on countless nights. Liu and her husband Deng Jie are members of China’s first generation of only children. Born in 1977 – only a year after the... https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3280578/how-chinas-one-child-generation-got-trapped-population-pyramid?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3280578/how-chinas-one-child-generation-got-trapped-population-pyramid?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 01 Oct 2024 22:00:15 +0000 China’s retirement age will rise by as much as five years starting in January, according to a decision made by the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, the country’s top legislative body. The government has long flagged the need to raise the retirement age to reduce strains on pension coffers, but the decision isn’t necessarily being welcomed by the population – across age groups. The move, in line with commitments made at the once-in-five-years third plenum in mid-July, will be... https://www.scmp.com/plus/article/3278670/china-delays-retirement-despite-concern-among-population?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/plus/article/3278670/china-delays-retirement-despite-concern-among-population?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 16 Sep 2024 09:01:00 +0000 China has officially cancelled the international adoption programme that allowed tens of thousands of Chinese orphans and abandoned children to find a new home overseas. Mao Ning, a foreign ministry spokeswoman, said on Thursday that in future Beijing would only allow foreign nationals who were relatives to adopt Chinese children. “Apart from the adoption of a child or stepchild from one’s collateral relatives by blood of the same generation and up to the third degree of kinship by foreigners... https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3277488/china-officially-ends-adoption-scheme-foreign-families?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3277488/china-officially-ends-adoption-scheme-foreign-families?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 06 Sep 2024 08:31:12 +0000 After the fiasco of the selective two-child policy, the universal two-child policy and the three-child policy, China introduced new policies at the third plenum of the Communist Party’s 20th Central Committee to address population ageing and the country’s declining birth rate. These policies include lowering the cost of childbirth, parenting and education, providing couples with children with childbirth subsidies, tax breaks, affordable childcare and possibly longer parental leave. In fact, the... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/china-opinion/article/3271573/solutions-chinas-birth-rate-problem-dont-lie-japans-playbook?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/china-opinion/article/3271573/solutions-chinas-birth-rate-problem-dont-lie-japans-playbook?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 25 Jul 2024 21:30:09 +0000 Prosecutors in an eastern Chinese city have sued 16 companies that asked women to go through pregnancy tests before they were hired. The Tongzhou district procuratorate in Nantong, a city in Jiangsu province, began investigating the matter after being tipped off earlier this year, the official Procuratorial Daily reported on Monday. After the investigation had finished, prosecutors contacted the local bureau of human resources and social security, which then warned the companies and hospitals... https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3270586/chinese-firms-caught-carrying-out-illegal-pregnancy-tests-female-jobseekers?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3270586/chinese-firms-caught-carrying-out-illegal-pregnancy-tests-female-jobseekers?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 16 Jul 2024 06:00:16 +0000 After waking up at 6.30am, Claudia Ke brewed herself a cup of tea. The grey, drizzly January sky over Burgundy, France, somehow reminded her of winters in Shanghai, where she had lived for six years. It had been five months since she had arrived in the famous French wine region, in August 2023, and she was still adjusting to the laid-back lifestyle. The 35-year-old’s life in China had been defined first by the years she worked for fashion magazine Vogue in Beijing and then Macy’s department... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3267567/running-china-single-women-their-thirties-escaping-study-west?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3267567/running-china-single-women-their-thirties-escaping-study-west?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 23 Jun 2024 23:15:11 +0000 China ended a nine-year streak of declining marriage registrations last year, with the number of newlywed couples rising to 7.68 million, according to data released by the Ministry of Civil Affairs on Friday. This was an increase of 845,000 unions compared to the number registered in 2022. He Yafu, an independent demographer, said a key reason for the rebound in registrations last year was that many young people had to delay marriage because of the Covid-19 pandemic. “As the pandemic gradually... https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3255696/china-ends-9-year-decline-new-marriages-2023-divorces-also-climb?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3255696/china-ends-9-year-decline-new-marriages-2023-divorces-also-climb?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 17 Mar 2024 10:00:16 +0000 The moment a young director marks their arrival on the international film scene is always a crucial one. For Chinese filmmaker Lin Jianjie, that moment is now. After directing three short films, his feature-film debut, Brief History of a Family, received its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in January. Lin’s film was reportedly the first to be selected for the festival’s World Cinema Dramatic category. Variety called it an “engrossing brain-tickler”. Now it is about to receive its... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/entertainment/article/3250374/michael-crichton-lin-jianjie-went-science-filmmaking-ahead-his-debut-features-european-premiere-he?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/entertainment/article/3250374/michael-crichton-lin-jianjie-went-science-filmmaking-ahead-his-debut-features-european-premiere-he?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 31 Jan 2024 08:15:13 +0000 China’s top official on women’s affairs has pledged to promote women’s role in the family and has offered guidance for younger generations on marriage and relationships. Shen Yiqin, state councillor and newly elected president of the All-China Women’s Federation, wrote in Qiushi, the Communist Party’s top theoretical journal, on Thursday that women must contribute to the “great cause of national rejuvenation and demonstrate the power of half the sky”. “Women hold up half the sky” is a famous... https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3241740/chinas-top-women-affairs-official-vows-promote-marriage-and-family-harness-power-half-sky?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3241740/chinas-top-women-affairs-official-vows-promote-marriage-and-family-harness-power-half-sky?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 16 Nov 2023 06:47:53 +0000 On Chinese social media, there are many posts discussing China’s rules on marriage and divorce. In the past three years, Beijing has introduced a flurry of amendments and moved towards pronatalist policies. Among directives about child custody and matrimonial assets, the authorities now require divorcing couples to undergo mediation meetings, and a divorce can only be granted when both sides agree. The marriage law itself has been integrated into China’s first civil code, a comprehensive legal... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3239780/marriage-and-babies-maybe-china-should-listen-its-citizens?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3239780/marriage-and-babies-maybe-china-should-listen-its-citizens?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 31 Oct 2023 12:30:22 +0000 Sishengzi, or “secretly born child”, is a derogatory term to describe children born out of wedlock. For a woman to raise such a child in China used to be as difficult as climbing up the sky. To start with, without a marriage certificate, this child would not be able to get registered, which meant they could not go to a state school, take a flight or get vaccinated. However, there are signs that suggest the Chinese government has begun to loosen control to a certain degree. In recent years,... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3237576/how-fix-chinas-birth-rate-treat-single-mothers-same-married-ones?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3237576/how-fix-chinas-birth-rate-treat-single-mothers-same-married-ones?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 13 Oct 2023 21:30:10 +0000 Births in China could drop below 8 million this year, setting a record low and further clouding the country’s gloomy demographic outlook, according to a leading medical academic. “The expected number of births in 2023 is estimated to be around 7 million to 8 million,” Qiao Jie, dean of the Health Science Centre at Peking University, said on Tuesday at a forum on innovations in medical technologies. She added that the number of Chinese newborns has been cut by around 40 per cent in the past five... https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3230660/china-population-2023-births-could-plunge-quarter-record-low-set-last-year-academic-warns?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3230660/china-population-2023-births-could-plunge-quarter-record-low-set-last-year-academic-warns?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 11 Aug 2023 03:00:19 +0000 A prominent demographer and government adviser is calling for more work to be done to encourage couples to have their first child, amid persistent fears that China’s shrinking population and other demographic challenges could have profound social and economic implications. “The decrease and delay in having firstborn children is the main reason for the falling birth rate,” said He Dan, director of the China Population and Development Research Centre, under the National Health Commission. “Some... https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3222473/china-population-demographer-says-lack-firstborn-children-not-second-or-third-most-pressing-issue?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3222473/china-population-demographer-says-lack-firstborn-children-not-second-or-third-most-pressing-issue?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 01 Jun 2023 03:00:12 +0000 China’s youth unemployment problem is getting worse. The latest numbers showed that the jobless rate for people aged between 16 and 24 is over 20 per cent – far higher than the national average of 5.2 per cent. While the headline figures are nothing exceptional – the global ratio of NEETS, or “not in education, employment or training”, in the age group of 15-24 exceeded 20 per cent in 2020 – they present a particularly worrisome picture in China, given the country’s population size and unique... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3221381/china-must-protect-its-private-economy-solve-its-youth-unemployment-crisis?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3221381/china-must-protect-its-private-economy-solve-its-youth-unemployment-crisis?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 22 May 2023 23:00:14 +0000 On the International Day of Families, Chinese authorities took the timely opportunity to stress the importance of boosting population quality while making fresh pledges of support for childbirth, as deepening demographic challenges continue to have an outsized impact on the world’s second-largest economy. Amid a rising reluctance to raise children, primarily due to high costs, China needs to foster a child-bearing-friendly society to maintain an appropriate birth rate, according to a commentary... https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3220623/chinas-population-woes-have-state-organs-demographers-calling-drastic-societal-changes-boost-birth?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3220623/chinas-population-woes-have-state-organs-demographers-calling-drastic-societal-changes-boost-birth?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 16 May 2023 02:00:21 +0000 China is walking into a demographic crisis that is unprecedented in speed and scale. The country’s population started to shrink last year as the national birth rate fell to a record low, while the number of elderly continues to climb. That situation not only threatens to overburden the healthcare infrastructure and puts the pension system at risk, but it also poses a challenge to China’s economic ambitions. The central government, however, has yet to respond with a coherent and effective... https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/3211712/chinas-deepening-demographic-crisis-calls-stronger-more-coherent-course-action-beijing?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/3211712/chinas-deepening-demographic-crisis-calls-stronger-more-coherent-course-action-beijing?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 27 Feb 2023 15:00:08 +0000 China’s population decline is irreversible, and believing otherwise is futile, demographers warned on Tuesday as the world’s long-time most populous nation announced that it shrank last year for the first time in six decades. Nonetheless, they say the urgency of the situation shows that more must be done to stem the tide, including ramped-up efforts to boost the birth rate. “It’s unquestionable that China will not see population growth from now on, as an endless period of population decline... https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3207141/chinas-population-faces-endless-period-decline-demographic-shift-far-finished?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3207141/chinas-population-faces-endless-period-decline-demographic-shift-far-finished?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 17 Jan 2023 11:31:59 +0000 The year 2022 has been notable for many things, one of them being the “official” peak of China’s population size. From this year onwards, the total number of people in China will gradually become smaller annually. During the over three decades that Beijing’s ruthless one-child policy was enforced, the target was simply to bring down the size of the population and slow its growth. China has now reached the goal, but there is little reason to celebrate. By the government’s own estimates, its... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3204600/2022-be-remembered-year-chinas-population-peaked-and-its-demographic-crisis-began?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3204600/2022-be-remembered-year-chinas-population-peaked-and-its-demographic-crisis-began?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 26 Dec 2022 23:00:12 +0000 An online post about a newlywed in China, who was rung up by her local government asking if she was pregnant, garnered tens of thousands of comments on Thursday before being removed, with many social media users saying they had experienced similar calls. The debate comes on the heels of President Xi Jinping declaring at the Communist Party’s 20th congress last week that China would establish a policy to boost birth rates and improve the country’s population development strategy. In the post on... https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3197492/chinas-birth-rate-drops-authorities-call-newlyweds-about-baby-plans?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3197492/chinas-birth-rate-drops-authorities-call-newlyweds-about-baby-plans?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 27 Oct 2022 12:21:41 +0000 The multipronged strategy China needs to reverse a declining population is laid out in a State Council policy document. Issued by 17 ministries, it contains approaches widely acknowledged by demographers as being necessary to encourage couples to marry and have children. On paper, it would seem to have the right ingredients for success. But formulating a plan is only the beginning; ensuring it is properly enacted and supported by local governments, employers and society is essential. Beijing’s... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3189813/population-push-beijing-calls-shift-attitudes-society?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3189813/population-push-beijing-calls-shift-attitudes-society?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 22 Aug 2022 18:24:14 +0000 As the January sun sets over verdant rice fields somewhere in Cambodia’s western Pursat province, Kunthea’s two-year-old clamours onto her lap. Sitting on a daybed, clad in a black and orange tie-dye T-shirt, she is quietly savouring a moment with one of her two children. They are the reasons, after divorcing her first husband in 2020, she picked up a job at a toy factory in central Cambodia, even though that meant leaving her children in her cousin’s care halfway across the country. But as the... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3189508/i-was-screaming-help-sold-brides-china-few?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3189508/i-was-screaming-help-sold-brides-china-few?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 21 Aug 2022 00:15:20 +0000 China is facing renewed calls to lower its legal marriageable ages – the oldest in the world – after its number of marriages plunged to a new low last year. But some demographers are questioning the effectiveness of allowing people to tie the knot earlier in life, as a trend of delayed marriages is expected to continue while China becomes more urbanised and its young people shy away from the high costs of raising a family. The number of Chinese people in their first marriages fell nearly 50 per... https://www.scmp.com/economy/economic-indicators/article/3172427/chinas-demographic-crisis-sparks-renewed-calls-lower?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/economy/economic-indicators/article/3172427/chinas-demographic-crisis-sparks-renewed-calls-lower?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 30 Mar 2022 10:30:56 +0000 China should lift all of its family-planning restrictions and step up pronatalist measures to boost the country’s precariously low birth rate, according to a number of representatives to the “two sessions” agenda-setting meetings that kick off on Friday. With thousands of China’s political elites converging on Beijing to attend the annual parliamentary gatherings, a number of representatives have revealed their proposals to the central government to address the nation’s worsening demographic... https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3169118/two-sessions-2022-calls-chinas-family-planning-restrictions?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3169118/two-sessions-2022-calls-chinas-family-planning-restrictions?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 03 Mar 2022 20:30:18 +0000 Grappling with a population crisis and plunging birth rate, China is embracing a pronatalist policy that could see it lift highly restrictive and controversial policies on women donating and freezing their eggs. Public support has also been growing online in recent weeks, after the National Health Commission (NHC), China’s top health authority, said in December that it had “started revising rules and standards relevant to assisted reproductive technology, based on wide consultations with... https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3166962/chinas-population-crisis-could-give-women-greater?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3166962/chinas-population-crisis-could-give-women-greater?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 14 Feb 2022 16:00:13 +0000 A county in northern China is collecting information from singles to build an official database for matchmaking purposes, a local official said as the nation faces dire demographic prospects. In response to a citizen’s question on the official “Message Board for Leaders” website operated by People.cn, the party boss of Luanzhou in the northern province of Hebei said the county had been distributing application forms for matchmaking activities since November 18. “Single youths fill in personal... https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3161302/chinas-population-crisis-prompts-county-play-cupid-pair-unwed?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3161302/chinas-population-crisis-prompts-county-play-cupid-pair-unwed?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 28 Dec 2021 13:30:18 +0000 For the first time in decades, India’s population growth looks to be slowing – an achievement that advocates of its “voluntary” approach to family planning say shows more coercive methods, such as those used by China, are not needed. Data from the Health Ministry’s most recent National Family Health Survey, released last week, showed India’s total fertility rate had dropped to 2.0, below the so-called replacement rate of 2.1 needed to maintain a stable population. In urban areas it was even... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/health-environment/article/3157783/what-one-child-policy-indias-population-growth-slows?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/health-environment/article/3157783/what-one-child-policy-indias-population-growth-slows?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 29 Nov 2021 11:12:31 +0000 Three Chinese teenagers who were raised in America return to Guangdong, southern China, to search for their biological parents in Found, a documentary streaming on Netflix from October 20. It’s a journey that unleashes a cascade of emotions. Chloe, Sadie and Lily met each other through 23andMe, a service that matches relatives through DNA samples. Although they lived in Phoenix, Nashville, and Oklahoma City, respectively, they became close friends over social media. Documentary filmmaker Amanda... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/entertainment/article/3152725/adopted-girls-seek-their-chinese-birth-parents-found?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/entertainment/article/3152725/adopted-girls-seek-their-chinese-birth-parents-found?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 18 Oct 2021 10:45:09 +0000 MADE IN JAPAN Five years ago, I had the good fortune to meet Aya, a lovely young lady working in Tokyo’s financial district. Aya’s career was accelerating fast, and in her late-20s, recently married, she was now looking to start a family. It was refreshing to hear her excitement, given all the negativity around Japan’s “lost generation”, and their lack of babies. And it seemed many of her friends were like-minded and wanted babies too! The proviso was that they found affordable childcare so they... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3144889/japans-message-china-baby-boom-isnt-going-happen?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3144889/japans-message-china-baby-boom-isnt-going-happen?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 15 Aug 2021 23:00:09 +0000 The recent announcement of the three-child policy has caused heated debate in China. Should we try to remain one of the most populous countries in the world, or should we be resigned to following in the footsteps of Japan and be weakened significantly as demographic figures drop? This reminds me of the famous debate between Mao Zedong and Ma Yinchu, an economist and demographic expert, almost immediately after the birth of the People’s Republic. The ideas of Mao eventually prevailed and the... https://www.scmp.com/comment/letters/article/3139589/china-three-child-policy-focus-better-rather-bigger-population?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/letters/article/3139589/china-three-child-policy-focus-better-rather-bigger-population?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 03 Jul 2021 23:00:19 +0000 Local governments across China are investigating ways to raise the birth rate as the country prepares to adopt legislation to allow all couples to have three children. At a meeting on Friday night chaired by Premier Li Keqiang, China’s cabinet, the State Council, agreed to put proposed amendments to the Population and Family Planning Law to the National People’s Congress Standing Committee for deliberation. The decision comes after an announcement by the Communist Party’s Politburo last month to... https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3138009/china-step-closer-three-child-policy-what-support-will-women?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3138009/china-step-closer-three-child-policy-what-support-will-women?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 19 Jun 2021 11:16:34 +0000 For Chinese families that want large families, it is not impossible to get around the country’s restrictive family planning policies – it’s just expensive.  For one woman in China, named Zhang Rongrong, her and her family has paid out more than US$155,000 in fines for having her seven children, five boys and two girls.  Without paying the fines, the children – five boys and two girls, including a set of twins, aged between one and 14 – would not have received their all-important identity... https://www.scmp.com/society/chinese-family-had-pay-us150000-their-seven-children/article/3123069?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/society/chinese-family-had-pay-us150000-their-seven-children/article/3123069?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 25 Feb 2021 10:02:00 +0000 Every Tuesday and Thursday, China Trends takes the pulse of the Chinese social media to keep you in the loop of what the world’s biggest internet population is talking about. Coins for coffee China’s digital payment revolution may have gone too far for some. Starbucks China was forced to apologize over the weekend after a viral video showed an employee refusing to accept coins as payment. The footage, which was shot at an unspecified location in China, sparked a backlash on social media from... https://www.scmp.com/society/china-trends-starbucks-apologizes-over-coin-fiasco-and-end-two-child-policy/article/3097649?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/society/china-trends-starbucks-apologizes-over-coin-fiasco-and-end-two-child-policy/article/3097649?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 18 Aug 2020 06:37:59 +0000 Since January 1, 2016, when the nation eased its one-child policy to allow families to have two children, more parents are handing down a maternal family name.  Breaking with deeply-rooted tradition, some parents are now giving their firstborn child the father’s surname and the second child the mother’s name. https://www.scmp.com/china/more-chinese-babies-are-given-mothers-family-name-after-shift-two-child-policy/article/3094817?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/china/more-chinese-babies-are-given-mothers-family-name-after-shift-two-child-policy/article/3094817?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 27 Jul 2020 09:19:40 +0000 Every Tuesday and Thursday, Inkstone Index features a single, illuminating number that helps you make sense of China. 2022: the year when China is expected to officially become an “aged society.”  By 2022, one out of seven people in China will likely be aged 65 years or older, according to a report from the Chinese research firm Evergrande Research Institute. In 2019, that number was one in ten. An “aged society” is defined by the United Nations as a country where more than 14.3% of a population... https://www.scmp.com/society/inkstone-index-china-getting-very-old-very-fast/article/3088338?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/society/inkstone-index-china-getting-very-old-very-fast/article/3088338?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 11 Jun 2020 10:17:32 +0000 Women’s rights advocates have applauded a proposal to China’s top advisory body to expand access to assisted reproductive technology. This includes technologies such as in vitro fertilization and egg freezing – medical practices that are difficult to access for unmarried women in China. Under the country’s existing laws, unmarried women and couples who do not “comply with the population and birth-planning regulations” are banned from using those services at Chinese hospitals and agencies. Peng... https://www.scmp.com/health/unmarried-women-might-get-win-gender-equality-china/article/3085637?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/health/unmarried-women-might-get-win-gender-equality-china/article/3085637?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 22 May 2020 11:47:48 +0000 It is often presumed that government policies are the main factors determining birth patterns in China. This may not be the case anymore. By the end of 2015, China ended the controversial one-child policy, allowing couples to have two children. A baby boom was expected. But it hasn’t materialized and it is very unlikely that it will. According to the National Bureau of Statistics, the birth rate in 2019 fell to 1.048, the lowest on record since the founding of the People’s Republic, except in... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/why-china-fails-boost-birth-rates-after-ending-one-child-policy/article/3048668?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/why-china-fails-boost-birth-rates-after-ending-one-child-policy/article/3048668?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 03 Feb 2020 10:15:29 +0000 One Sunday afternoon in February 2017, Chinese film director Yuchao Feng was in his flat in the US state of New Jersey when he received a phone call from his mother that would shock and inspire him. Feng knew something was wrong – not just because it was 3am in the northern Chinese city of Tianjin, where his mother, Wang Jingjing, was calling from, but because they rarely spoke. “My parents were not around much when I was growing up in Ningde,” says Feng, recalling the city of three million in... https://www.scmp.com/society/short-film-pearl-remembers-chinas-abandoned-children/article/3043396?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/society/short-film-pearl-remembers-chinas-abandoned-children/article/3043396?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 24 Dec 2019 10:45:48 +0000 In 1992, I was abandoned as a baby and found in a public place in Hefei, China. For almost two years, I lived in an orphanage and with a foster mother. Then my adoptive mother flew me to Sacramento, California, where I grew up. My existence here in the United States is due to China’s infamous one-child policy, which was imposed for more than three decades before it was eased to a two-child policy in 2015.  I am one of more than 90,000 children adopted from China and raised in the US between 1992... https://www.scmp.com/society/chinas-one-child-policy-left-countless-children-bereft-it-can-help-ease-pain-loss/article/3041239?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/society/chinas-one-child-policy-left-countless-children-bereft-it-can-help-ease-pain-loss/article/3041239?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 09 Dec 2019 10:26:47 +0000 A Chinese county’s move to punish “unfilial” people has fueled a debate over the state’s role in taking care of China’s rapidly aging population. Xunyang, one of the poorest counties in the northwestern Chinese province of Shaanxi, said last week it would punish people who fail to take good care of their elderly parents. Chinese people are customarily expected to care for their elderly parents. But the county’s plan to punish those who fail to provide financial support to their parents has... https://www.scmp.com/society/chinese-countys-plan-punish-unfilial-children-sparks-elderly-care-debate/article/3019753?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/society/chinese-countys-plan-punish-unfilial-children-sparks-elderly-care-debate/article/3019753?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 23 Jul 2019 10:08:57 +0000 Alabama’s move to ban nearly all abortions in the state has shaken a country divided over women’s right to terminate a pregnancy. But in China, there is no debate. On Twitter-like Weibo, social media users have overwhelmingly slammed the American state’s sweeping abortion ban. “You cannot even have abortions if you are impregnated by rape or incest? Are these people crazy?” said a top comment. The stark contrast underscores how a history of population control policies has helped shape views on... https://www.scmp.com/society/why-chinese-people-are-outraged-alabamas-abortion-ban/article/3010496?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/society/why-chinese-people-are-outraged-alabamas-abortion-ban/article/3010496?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 16 May 2019 10:02:57 +0000