Demographic Dilemma's: Negotiating Marriage, Reproduction, and Parenting in Shrinking China

Panel Convenor(s)

• WS

  Willy Sier

  Utrecht University, Netherlands

Panel Chair(s)

• WS

  Willy Sier

  Utrecht University, Netherlands

Presenter(s)

• WS

  Willy Sier

  Utrecht University, Netherlands
• ZH

  Zachary Howlett

  National University of Singapore (NUS), Singapore
• ST

  Siqi Tu

  Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Germany
• KX

  Kailing Xie

  University of Birmingham, United Kingdom

In China, the country’s low birth rate is on everybody’s lips. Between 2016 and 2022, Chinese births fell by almost half, from 18 million births in 2016 to 9,6 million births in 2022, despite the implementation of pro-natalist policies. The resulting demographic change makes headline news. First in 2022, when the population shrank by 850,000 people, for the first time since the Great Chinese famine of 1959-1961. Then in 2023, when India overtook China as the most populous country in the world. In China, people respond to these numbers in different ways. Some wonder whether it would not be better to have a smaller population, while others are confident that the birth rate will soon bounce back. Politicians remind people that quality is more important than quantity, while demographers warn that the shrinkage of 2022 is only the start of a long fall with serious societal consequences. According to demographers’ calculations, the population of China might shrink fifty per cent or more by 2100, when the country might be comparable in size to today’s Nigeria. When making sense of China’s dropping birth rate, scholars often look towards other East Asian countries, where birth rates have long been among the lowest in the world. They point at demanding work culture, changing gender relations, the cost of housing and education, access to health care, and difficulties related to combining childcare with caring for one’s parents to explain few child births in places such as Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. In these societies, declining birth rates are often viewed as a “growing pain”, or a byproduct of increased economic prosperity and improved gender equality. This interdisciplinary panel brings together scholars from five universities who investigate discussions among Chinese women and men about reproduction. It provides insight into the connections between changed patterns of mobility, both transnational and internal, with shifting attitudes towards reproduction, while considering the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic. With attention for class dynamics as well as rural-urban differences, the panel deepens our understanding of shifts in Chinese societies that have led to a rapidly falling number of births through analyzing negotiations pertaining marriage and childbirth that happen on the level of the individual, the couple, the family, and between citizens and the state.

Presentations:

• 16:15 – 18:00 (GMT+7)

  My Body, My Pain: Negotiating Reproduction for Educated Women from Rural Backgrounds in Central and Southern China
  

  Presenter: Willy Sier – Utrecht University
• 16:15 – 18:00 (GMT+7)

  Transforming Patriarchy across Borders: Chinese Women Student Migrants in Singapore
  

  Presenter: Zachary Howlett – National University of Singapore (NUS)
• 16:15 – 18:00 (GMT+7)

  Narratives on “the Last Generation” of Urban China: Post-COVID Mentality on Intention of Reproduction
  

  Presenter: Siqi Tu – Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology
• 16:15 – 18:00 (GMT+7)

  Tokophobia as Feminist Resistance? Female Netizens' Reproductive Experiences and Discourses in China's Cyberspace
  

  Presenter: Kailing Xie – University of Birmingham