Punishment for awards: China provides cash for infants after decades of strict birth control, but young people are not interested in world news
China, once its harsh united policy and strict punishment for violator, is now reversing the course in a dramatic manner by offering financial incentives to encourage the child’s birth. The government is rolling out cash subsidy and tax brakes to promote family formation, facing a decline in a historical population and the lowest birth rate since the 1940s. Cities like Hangzo and Changsha have announced more than 3,000 to 10,000 yuan to annual payment per child, while some provinces are providing even more liberal prizes for large families.But these efforts are becoming flat. Despite the new allowances, the survey suggests that many young Chinese citizens are reluctant to have children. High life costs, career pressure, lack of childcare support, and changing social values are contributing to a generation that looks rapidly as alternative or undesirable.
China’s population push: from control to cash prize
For three decades, China’s family planning policies discouraged large families through fines, forced abortion and intensive surveillance. Today, that model has been replaced by a desperate push to slow down the demographic decline. In 2023, the country recorded a decline of net population for the second consecutive year. To compete this, various levels of the government are now experimenting with encouragement: free breeding services, extended maternity leave, housing exemption and cashout.These cash offers are once unimaginable in a country where many children used to mean punishment once, now they are becoming common. Cities like Shenzhen and Jinan have started offering child subsidies, while rural province families are starting financial assistance for young couples ready to start. This change reflects increasing anxiety within Chinese leadership on long -term consequences of a shrinking and aging population, including lack of labor, lack of economic growth and increasing pressure on the social welfare system.
Uncontrolled by younger generation encouragement
Poll and social media commentary suggests that youth are not buying in the fertility of the state. Many people increase the cost of stable wages, housing, and as the intensive pressure of parenting in China’s competitive society as the reasons for delay or choosing children. Others prefer personal freedom, mental health or lifestyle only on traditional family expectations.There is also a deep sense of disillusionment among many millenniums and general Z citizens, which have grown under intensive academic and social pressures, and now face economic instability and a demanding work culture. Fear of not being able to provide a good life for a child – alone for himself – is running far away from family life. Despite the government’s efforts to rebuild delivery as patriotic or economically beneficial act, the younger generation increasingly sees paternity as a burden rather than a blessing.
