New Delhi, February 6 (IANS). China, which was once very strict regarding the one child policy, is changing its attitude. According to a media report, women are being appealed to have more children.
According to the report of Myanmar-based Mekong News, in the last four decades the birth rate has been decided not by women but by the government.
While the One Child Policy in 1979 aimed to curb population growth, now women in the country have started being pressurized to have more children. This is because the country’s population has seen a huge decline.
If we look at the official figures released in January, the situation becomes clear. 7.92 million babies will be born in 2025, which is 1.62 million (about 17 percent) less than 9.54 million in 2024. The birth rate fell to 5.63 per 1,000 people, a record low.
This is the lowest level since 1949, when modern census records began in China.
“Beijing still views childbearing not as a matter of individual freedom but as a means of economic planning,” the report said.
According to the report, the one-child policy, with the goal “to drive development, increase incomes and reduce pressure on the country”, deprived many women of their desires. They were forced to undergo abortion, undergo sterilization, and were physically and mentally tortured.
The report said that the government forced people to agree not democratically but by force.
The desire for sons is also mentioned in this report. It has been written that the desire to have a son also affected the sex ratio of the country.
China ended the one-child policy in 2016 and adopted a two-child policy. Later, when the birth rate continued to decline, it was extended to the three-child policy.
“The illusion of change in China’s policy highlights a deeper problem: Rather than fostering individual will, the government has begun imposing its policy out of economic compulsion,” the report said.
On one hand, the government is advising to increase the birth rate, while on the other hand, many couples want to avoid taking risks due to rising inflation, career, responsibilities and gender-based discrimination at the workplace.
The special thing is that due to the gender ratio, the number of women having children in China (due to increased age) has also decreased.
“Even though the government is now encouraging women to have children, women are still trapped by policy limitations,” the report said.
–IANS
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