In addition to the clichéd high costs of education, housing, etc., it has made many young people discouraged about marriage and childbirth. Behind it, it also involves a series of deep social problems such as regional economic imbalance, reconstruction of marriage values, and not receiving enough respect for women's reproductive rights
text | Mao Daqing
edited | Zhu Ya
Yesterday was an important festival for female friends. In recent years, I am very pleased to see that "March 8 Women's Day" has been increasingly valued by Chinese society, and the respect and role that women receive in the workplace and life are on an upward trend.
While happy, there are still some problems. If these problems are not taken seriously by the whole society and try to fundamentally solve them, they will become a huge obstacle to the sustainable and healthy development of Chinese society and may even trigger a social crisis.
These questions are summarized into two words: marriage and childbirth.
In addition to the clichéd high costs of education, housing, etc., many young people are discouraged from marriage and childbirth. Behind it, it also involves a series of deep social problems such as imbalanced regional economic development, the increase in migrant population year by year, the reconstruction of marriage values, the inadequate respect for women's reproductive rights, and the anxiety of supporting anxieties in an aging society.
various problems are summarized into the two most important life nodes of female individuals, "marriage and childbirth". Whether it is governments at all levels, employers, social organizations, and even the awareness level of the whole society, it is urgent to improve the rational understanding of the cost crisis of marriage and childbirth and the freedom of women's childbirth, and find operational response measures as soon as possible.
Why do young people fear marriage and childbirth?
The primary reason is from the life anxiety of a mobile society.
Reform and opening up to the present, with the improvement of marketization, the advancement of urbanization, and the gradual adjustment of household registration management system , we can see a clear trend of accelerated population mobility.
At the beginning of this century, China's migrant population was 121 million, accounting for less than 10% of the national population at that time; 10 years later, this number increased by 100 million, and the proportion also rose to 16.5%; in 2020, China's total migrant population reached 376 million, accounting for 26.6% of the national population, which means that one in every four Chinese people is a migrant population.
The root cause of the increase in the number of migrant population year by year is the problem of imbalance in regional development.
Due to the increase in migrant population, the development gap between China's most economically developed regions such as the Yangtze River Delta, Guangdong, Hong Kong, Macao, Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei, and other regions is further widening.
Among the migrant population, a large part of them are young people, and they are in the prosperous period of choosing a spouse, establishing a family, and having children. However, after arriving in a strange city, these people first have to face the real problems of how to gain a foothold, how to make a living, and how to develop their careers, rather than finding partners, getting married and having children.
Among them, there are different marriage and relationships between outsiders, between outsiders and locals, which are full of interference from a large number of external instability factors. The relationship is very fragile. If there is a slight setback, the progress of marriage and relationship will stagnate.
When survival and life become a single choice question, most people will choose the former.
In addition, the change in women's view of marriage has invisibly enhanced their willingness to marriage.
In the traditional Chinese concept, marriage is the only way for a family and even a family to continue.
As women's knowledge and skills are generally improved, their freedom in the social environment is getting higher and higher, which will inevitably lead to higher self-pursuit.
Modern women, especially professional women, have higher and more demands on their personal quality of life, and the comprehensive consideration of marriage partners is also improving. They no longer regard marriage and childbirth as pure causal relationship, so there is no longer a necessary connection between marriage and childbirth.
Many professional and intellectual women have subverted traditional concepts and have extremely high requirements for the sustainability, durability, quality of life, and even the degree of personal interest of spouses, which will reduce the probability of finding a suitable partner for marriage.
At the same time, men's attitude towards marriage is also changing, and the loyalty of marriage is under the test of temptations from all aspects of society.
In recent years, the probability of a woman cheating during pregnancy has increased year by year. Coupled with the frequent negative demonstration effects of celebrities and celebrities in marriage, people have more doubts about the survival and health of marriage.
From the perspective of the social value system, behind the changes in the concept of marriage is the explosive growth of wealth accumulation in Chinese society over the past half century and the spread of materialism. These have greatly changed the traditional values of the Chinese people, thus indirectly changing people's concepts of marriage and love.
When pragmatism becomes the mainstream, the stability of marriage, which uses dedication and tolerance as the cornerstone of existence, will inevitably decrease. This also makes many women develop a natural sense of fear and distrust of marriage, which once again reduces the proportion of successful marriages and loves for the right-age population.
Also, the right to self-reproduction that women should have is not respected enough.
Reproduction is a right granted by women by nature and has no necessary connection with the status of marriage and the constraints of the law. This obvious truth of
was not accepted in the long social process in China. In ancient times, there were feudal ethics constraints on women with three obediences and four virtues. Even in modern society, women were still set up with many moral and legal obstacles on marriage and childbirth, resulting in women being in a vulnerable position in fertility issues for a long time.
"You must get married before you can have children" - this itself is a narrowing of women's reproductive rights. With the joint role of this concept, with the help of the social moral system and institutional system, personality discrimination, household registration discrimination, and social security discrimination against children born out of wedlock have gradually formed.
The most typical phenomenon is the case of trafficking of women that has been repeatedly attacked but is difficult to ban. On the surface, these cases are exploitation of women's right to reproduction, treating women as pure reproduction tools, and in their underlying logic, society lacks the due fair treatment of women's right to reproduction.
A reality that cannot be avoided and cannot be denied is that in a male-dominated society, there is too much intervention and constraint on women's reproductive rights.
On this issue, from the level of the rule of law to the level of moral concepts, women are far away from truly gaining respect.
The phenomenon of leftover men and women brought about by regional economic imbalance is a social phenomenon that is particularly worthy of study. In cities, there are generally more leftover women than surplus men, while in rural areas, there are more leftover men than surplus women.
The word "leftover" is not particularly nice, but it vividly illustrates the current social population's marriage and love status.
In rural China, a large number of laborers go out to work. Among the male laborers who are left to farm, many people cannot meet the marriage and love demands of contemporary rural women in terms of personal qualities, knowledge levels and economic capabilities, and have become families with difficulties in marriage.
is particularly noteworthy. In recent years, the rural dowry water has risen, from at least tens of thousands of yuan to at most 300,000 yuan. The high marriage costs, including bride price, have made some rural families "sigh" in their hopes of marriage.
In the city, women's awareness and knowledge and skills have improved, which has made this group's requirements for marriage partners higher. Coupled with the actual demand for "houses, cars, tickets", it has become a difficult task to find a satisfactory marriage partner.
Another reality is that the situation of marriage achieved by buying and selling (trafficking) women in eastern China is significantly higher than that in western China. This shows to some extent that the extremely imbalance in the development of China's regional economic development has also given rise to abnormal marriage phenomenon.
In addition to factors such as high population turnover, changes in the concept of marriage and childbirth, constraints on reproductive rights, and regional economic imbalance, there is another important factor that cannot be ignored, which is an important factor for young people to be afraid of marriage and childbirth: the pressure to support the elderly.
Supporting the elderly is natural, but at the same time, it is very stressful for families with fewer children and more elderly people. Supporting the elderly is naturally complementary to marriage and childbirth, and it is two perspectives of the same problem.
When China's 421 family structure gradually became mainstream in society, the reality is that six adults (parents, grandparents, grandparents) jointly raise a minor.
It can be imagined that in more than ten years or even decades, this situation will develop to extremes and will evolve into a middle-aged and young family supporting 12 elderly people, including 4 young and middle-aged and elderly people. The family pension structure of
"1-2-4-8" is not a joke, it is emerging very realistically in the family model of Chinese society.
If targeted support and promotion are not provided for China's elderly care industry and the comprehensive layout of the elderly care welfare system, young people who are unmarried or married and have no children will now have more serious fear of life and huge burdens on life.
Solving anxiety requires multiple efforts
From the above analysis, we can see that the phenomenon of fear of marriage and childbirth is caused by multiple social reasons. To crack it, we must also take multiple measures.
After giving birth, the primary problem faced by the family is the maintenance of newborns and mothers. Confinement centers are an important industrial trend to solve this problem and can provide services that ordinary families cannot meet. However, this field still needs further development and promotion in China.
data shows that China has nearly 50 million infants and young children under the age of 3, while childcare institutions are scarce for this young population, with an enrollment rate of about 4.1%. Compared with the average enrollment rate of 35% in developed countries, China urgently needs to promote the overall number of childcare service institutions.
While increasing the number of childcare services, China should also try to reduce the childcare costs of Chinese families through policy intervention and social support under appropriate conditions.
Only by significantly reducing the cost of childcare can we more effectively eliminate the marriage and childbirth anxiety of people of appropriate age.
The country has made many useful attempts in how to stimulate the recovery of fertility rate of , including fertility subsidies, housing purchase subsidies, housing purchase subsidies, and double reduction policies. However, considering the long-term sluggish fertility rate, the subsidy for raising and supporting families needs to be improved.
For example, for second-child families, families with multiple children, and families with only children, preferential policies on personal income tax in , and overall support for welfare system.
At the implementation level of maternity leave, the loss of labor costs caused by female childbirth by enterprises and institutions should be provided by the government to provide a certain degree of policy subsidy, which can effectively reduce the potential discrimination of employers in recruiting unmarried and unborn women, and eliminate the anxiety of working women about career planning caused by childbirth.
In addition, the right to reproduction of women needs to be supported by law.
The former Ministry of Health stipulated in the "Technical Specifications for Human Assisted Reproduction" revised in 2003: "It is prohibited to implement human Assisted Reproduction Technology for couples and single women who do not comply with the national population and family planning regulations and regulations."
In today's society, with the development of science and technology and the progress of civilization, and the awakening of women's values, various demands that conflict with traditional reproductive values have emerged among women of childbearing age.
For example, some families who are willing to have a third or fourth child child have to face the risk of maternity and childbirth with older women; women of childbirth age who are not willing to get married but have the need to give birth; women of childbirth age who are in the golden period of career development want to choose their own maternity and childbirth; women of childbirth age who want to give birth but do not want to give birth by themselves due to special needs for body management; women of childbirth age who use technological means to assist eugenics.
The current assisted reproductive technical specifications have caused obstacles to unmarried women's sperm banking and egg freezing technology in operation, seriously restricting women's right to reproduction. The implementation background of the
specification is the family planning policy framework. Today, China is already very open in the birth policy. Therefore, the norms are no longer applicable to the current social environment, and appropriate adjustments should be made to the original policies immediately.
should have clearer attitudes and measures for these female groups at the policy level, legal level and medical technology level.
For example, for professional women, can we consider promoting the implementation of the surrogacy system within a suitable legal framework? At the same time, can some women of childbearing age who have no intention of marriage be able to make more attempts in the construction of sperm bank platform and the promotion of egg freezing technology? Give women more autonomous, free and self-definite reproductive rights. If the demands and legal constraints of women of childbearing age are resolved, they may be helpful in improving the fertility rate.
Supporting the elderly is an important source of anxiety for people of appropriate age marriage and childbirth. Only by adjusting the entire social system to better reduce the burden of supporting families for marriage and childbirth can their fertility anxiety be relieved.
has entered China, which is an aging society. It is urgent to comprehensively promote the aging-friendly reform, make the elderly care service system an important part of social security, and build a silver-haired friendly society.
At present, China's elderly care institutions are obviously unable to meet the needs of more and more elderly people, and at the silver hair industry level, more effective supply for the elderly people is also needed.
In the next few decades, with the increase of the elderly population and the decrease of the effective labor force, family care will lead to a large gap in domestic services and elderly nanny employment. In response to the employment problems in these families’ elderly care, it is also necessary to immediately formulate talent training plans.
fertility policy is an important balance strategy for a country's sustainable development. Women have become an indispensable and important part of the labor market in contemporary society, but they still need to bear the family responsibility of having children. Therefore, in terms of policy and economic security, we all have reasons to face such practical problems with a more open and positive attitude. Protecting women's legitimate rights and interests and advocating gender equality is not a simple slogan, but the direction for everyone to work together.
(the author is a postdoctoral fellow in regional economics, chief consultant of the National Science and Technology Communication Center, and founder of Ukemium)
