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By Micah McCartney
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An internal document from a Chinese city government making the rounds online reveals a concerted effort to counter the flagging birth rate with three-child families, with Chinese Communist Party members called on to do their patriotic duty.
"Party members and cadres at all levels" as well as employees of state-owned enterprises "should take the lead in implementing the three-child policy," reads a screenshot of the policy document the Fujian Province city of Quanzhou.
China's population in 2022 dipped for the first time since the end of the Great Chinese Famine in 1961. Last year saw a further decline, with the country's fertility rate dropping to 1.0 from 1.18, far below the rate of 2.1 births per woman needed to sustain a population.
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The country's top-down approach to family planning has shifted dramatically the past decade, ending its decades-old one-child policy in 2015 and opening the door to two children. Beijing further amended its Population and Family Planning Law in 2021 to establish its three-child policy.
Yet the ability to have more children, along with failed measures to encourage larger families, have had little effect as the world's second-largest economy slows, the cost of living rises in major cities, and cultural attitudes shift among younger Chinese.
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China's Jiemian News reported that Quanzhou city health officials confirmed the authenticity of the document, but stressed it is still in the discussion stage.
The screen capture suggests discussions are still in the early stage, with calls for vague measures like promotion of "age-appropriate births, 'eugenics,' and postnatal care" and a new birth registration system.
The policy discussions have reportedly cause unease among some Chinese netizens. The wording of the document hearkens back to the 1980 dawn of the one child-policy, when China's leadership published a letter calling on Communist Party and Communist Youth League members to spearhead the initiative to rein in population growth.
China's Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to a written request for comment.
Some observers are concerned the three-child policy could likewise eventually become compulsory, per the report.
Jiemian news quoted one Chinese blogger, Tuzao Ershan, as saying government officials who choose not to have three children "can forget about getting promoted or getting rich."
Another blogger, Chuanfu Buhuo, said the policy is out of the question for many of his peers "who are now couples with four elderly parents and two kids who have to make loan payments, raise their kids and also take care of medical treatment and health issues for their elders."
Chinese netizens are justified in their anxiety over the potential direction of the three-child policy, Susan Greenhalgh, John King & Wilma Cannon Fairbank research professor of Chinese Society at Harvard University, told Newsweek.
"Asking party and government cadres to 'take the lead' was indeed the central demand of the September 1980 Open Letter that made the one-child policy official. That was the first step in a phased rollout of the one-child policy," she pointed out.
Yet having three or even two children is "simply unthinkable" for many Chinese city dwellers, Greenhalgh went on. She added that the policy is part of a broader government push in which the onus is on families, particularly young women, to shoulder the costs of not only raising more children but caring for elderly family members.
Accompanying China's flagging birth rates is the rapidly increasing proportion of seniors, with those over 65 expected to account for nearly 30 percent of the population in 20 years.
Quanzhou has a slightly higher birth rate of 7.43 children per 1,000 people compared to 6.39 per 1,000 nationwide.
Update 7/27/24, 6:00 a.m. ET: This article has been updated with a comment from Susan Greenhalgh.
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