According to a report, amid a continuing population decline, Chinese government officials are calling women in the country, asking them if they are currently expecting and urging them to have a baby. That they get pregnant. South China Morning Post. The new policy for low-level government workers is a stark contrast to previous guidelines when the communist regime spent decades enforcing strict birth control measures. Jane Huang, a 35-year-old woman and mother of one in the southeastern coastal province of Fujian, was summoned by an officer earlier this month.
According to Huang, the randomness of the subject of the call made him laugh as the officer tried to get information.
“[Hello!] Is this Ms. Huang? Sorry to bother you. I’m from your sub-district office, are you pregnant now?” Huang described the call.
“The survey taker must be from a previous generation, who didn’t realize she was talking to a completely different generation that values privacy, quality of life and choice a lot,” he added.
A post shared on Chinese social media platform Xiaohongshu also went viral where a user claimed to have received a similar call.
“I got a call this morning from a grassroots worker asking if I’m pregnant,” read the post, according to CNA.
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China is facing a population crisis.
After overtaking India as the most populous country, China is facing its biggest demographic crisis with just nine million births recorded in 2023, down from 1949 according to government data. The latter is the lowest. Factoring in 11.1 million deaths, China’s population shrinks to 2.08 million in 2022 after falling by 850,000.
A major reason for the decline in population is the decline in the birth rate, which stood at 1.09 percent in 2022. Meanwhile, a Pew Research report claims that a third of China’s population (400 million) is expected by 2035. Be above 60 years of age. China, which prides itself on being the ‘factory of the world’, needs a young population to drive its manufacturing business, which could suffer from an increase in population decline.
Notably, China ended its one-child policy in 2020 to control its population. Under this policy, those who had more than one child had to pay a heavy fine.