Tag: Population

Three Is Best: How China’s Family Planning Propaganda Has Changed

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For decades, China harshly restricted the number of children couples could have, arguing that everyone would be better off with fewer mouths to feed. The government’s one-child policy was woven into the fabric of everyday life, through slogans on street banners and in popular culture and public art. Now, faced with a shrinking and aging population, China is using many of the same propaganda channels to send the opposite message: Have more babies. The government has also been offering financial incentives for couples to have two or three children. But…

Cost of raising children in China second-highest in world, thinktank reveals

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China is one of the most expensive places in the world to raise a child, outstripping the US and Japan in relative terms, a prominent Chinese thinktank has said. A report released on Wednesday by the Beijing-based Yuwa Population Research Institute found that the average cost of raising a child in China until the age of 18 is 538,000 yuan (£59,275) – more than 6.3 times as high as its GDP per capita, compared with 4.11 times in the US or 4.26 times in Japan. For children brought up in…

U.S. Strikes Houthis Again, and China’s Population Decline

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The New York Times Audio app is home to journalism and storytelling, and provides news, depth and serendipity. If you haven’t already, download it here — available to Times news subscribers on iOS — and sign up for our weekly newsletter. The Headlines brings you the biggest stories of the day from the Times journalists who are covering them, all in about five minutes. NYT

Hong Kong Stocks Sink 4 Percent as China’s Economy Scares Investors

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China’s No. 2 leader, Li Qiang, traveled to Switzerland with a message for the titans of the business world gathered for the World Economic Forum. “Choosing the Chinese market is not a risk, but an opportunity,” Mr. Li, China’s premier, told an audience in Davos, Switzerland on Tuesday. But there’s a different sentiment about China playing out in the stock market and it’s not so optimistic. The worries over China’s economy have been visible for months in Hong Kong, where stocks plunged 14 percent last year. The new year hasn’t…

China population decline accelerates as birthrate hits record low

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China’s population decline has accelerated, with a second year of record-low birthrates. The total number of people in China dropped by 2.75 million – or 0.2% – to 1.409 billion in 2023, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Tuesday. The drop surpassed that recorded in 2022, of about 850,000 – the first time the recorded population had declined since the mass deaths of the Mao-era famines. In 2023, total deaths rose 6.6% to 11.1 million, with the death rate reaching the highest level since 1974 during the cultural revolution.…

China Told Women to Have Babies, but Its Population Shrank Again

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China’s ruling Communist Party is facing a national emergency. To fix it, the party wants more women to more have babies. It has offered them sweeteners, like cheaper housing, tax benefits and cash. It has also invoked patriotism, calling on them to be “good wives and mothers.” The efforts aren’t working. Chinese women have been shunning marriage and babies at such a rapid pace that China’s population in 2023 shrank for the second straight year, accelerating the government’s sense of crisis over the country’s rapidly aging population and its economic…

China’s Male Leaders Push to Get Women to Stay Home for Family

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At China’s top political gathering for women, it was mostly a man who was seen and heard. Xi Jinping, the country’s leader, sat center stage at the opening of the National Women’s Congress. A close-up of him at the Congress was splashed on the front page of the Chinese Communist Party’s newspaper the next day. From the head of a large round table, Mr. Xi lectured female delegates at the closing meeting on Monday. “We should actively foster a new type of marriage and childbearing culture,” he said in a…

China to hold nationwide survey on population changes as birthrate plummets

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China’s National Bureau of Statistics will conduct a nationwide sample survey in November to help better plan population policies, as authorities struggle to boost the country’s flagging birthrate. Concerned about China’s first population drop in six decades and its rapid ageing, Beijing is urgently trying an array of measures to lift the country’s birthrate including financial incentives and boosting childcare facilities. The survey’s scope on population changes will focus on urban and rural areas throughout the country, according to state media reports on Tuesday. The plan will help to “accurately…

Closure of maternity wards fuels Chinese debate over population decline

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A number of hospital obstetrics units in China have closed, prompting discussion about the effects of China’s dramatically falling birthrate. Several hospitals in Zhejiang province have reportedly closed or downsized their obstetrics units, along with hospitals in Jiangsu and Guangdong. China’s birthrate fell to a record low in 2022, with just 9.56m births, a drop of nearly 10% compared with 2021. That meant the population shrank for the first time since 1961, a year of mass famine in China. The slump is fuelling a demographic crisis in China, with an…

Beijing’s demographic crisis means China could get old before it gets rich

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Cici, 27, doesn’t want to have a baby until she’s at least 35. Her mother is putting pressure on her to get married and “have a stable life”, but with a busy job at a tech company in Beijing – while also completing a master’s degree in law – she hardly has the time to think about starting a family. Cici’s story is not unique; across the world, young women are putting off marriage and childbirth for longer than their mothers did. However, in China the phenomenon is so acute…