"Have a Third Child" Officials Make Phone Calls... Newborns at Historic Low in South Korea

Breakdown of 10 Million Newborns Last Year
Patriarchy Emphasizes Women's Childbirth and Childcare Roles

Chinese President Xi Jinping has unusually revealed a personal family photo in his New Year's address, promoting childbirth and childcare, as Chinese authorities launch a large-scale campaign to encourage births. While households are being urged to have a third child and major local governments are competing to advertise substantial childbirth incentives, the number of newborns is reportedly falling to the lowest level since the founding of the country.

A family photo of President Xi Jinping of China (left) from the past, released along with his 2024 New Year's address on the 31st of last month. [Image source=CCTV]

According to Hong Kong Ming Pao on the 2nd (local time), President Xi released a new family photo during his 2024 New Year's address on the 31st of last month. The photos mainly featured his wife Peng Liyuan and their young daughter. Ming Pao interpreted this as "most of the photos released during this year's New Year's address were 'family photos,'" describing it as a gesture emphasizing traditional family values.

Earlier, in October last year, during a meeting with officials from the All-China Women's Federation, President Xi stressed, "Strengthen guidance on young people's concepts of marriage, dating, childbirth, childcare, and family, and expedite the improvement and implementation of childbirth support policies to actively respond to aging." He also emphasized that "women's work is related not only to the development of women themselves but also to family harmony, social harmony, national development, and ethnic progress." This conveyed a message that women should be more devoted to traditional roles such as childbirth and childcare rather than active social participation.

As President Xi continues to send messages encouraging childbirth and childcare, Chinese authorities are also actively promoting childbirth. According to The Wall Street Journal (WSJ), Chinese officials are leading efforts by making phone calls urging residents to have children. He Yanjing, a woman raising two children, told WSJ, "I have received several calls from local officials recently encouraging me to have a third child, but I have no plans to do so," adding, "The kindergarten my son attends is reducing the number of classrooms by half due to a shortage of students."

Another woman, Ms. Zhang, who gave birth to her second child in 2014, was fined under the then birth control policy known as the "one-child policy" and had to undergo intrauterine device inspections every three months to prevent additional pregnancies. However, she recently received text messages encouraging her to have more children. Zhang said, "I get angry every time I see these childbirth encouragement text messages and delete them. I wish the government would leave ordinary people like us alone."

Major local governments in China are also announcing childbirth incentive programs one after another to encourage births. In Guangdong Province and other major municipalities, a one-time childbirth incentive of 3,000 yuan (about 550,000 KRW) is provided for the birth of the first child, along with annual childcare subsidies of 1,500 yuan for three years. Families with a second and third child receive childbirth incentives of 5,000 yuan and 10,000 yuan respectively, along with annual childcare subsidies of 2,500 yuan and 3,000 yuan for three years.

However, despite these childbirth encouragement efforts, the birth rate is declining more sharply. China's total fertility rate fell to 1.09 last year, and the number of newborns recorded 9.65 million last year, dropping below 10 million for the first time since the founding of the country in 1949. The number of newborns, which was about 16 million in 2012, has sharply decreased by nearly 7 million in just over a decade.

WSJ introduced research results from a joint research team led by Feng Shujian, a senior researcher at Victoria University in Australia, warning that "if China's low birthrate trend accelerates, the population could sharply decline to 587 million by 2100."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.