Weighing up the costs as three-child policy is introduced
"Let's have a third baby!"
"Dream on! How much money do you make?"
It was a difficult conversation between 37-year-old Huang Yuan and his 34-year-old wife Sally Lin after China announced that couples will now be permitted to have up to three children.
"We simply can't afford it," Lin told Shanghai Daily, citing the cost of her 10-year-old son and 7-year-old daughter to be around 200,000 yuan (US$31,360) a year.
Like parents toting up costs, China's family-planning policies boil down to some simple math. A country needs enough working-age people to pay the taxes that support the social and health needs of an aging population.
In 2016, the math was getting lopsided, so the one-child policy that had been in place for decades to control population growth was scrapped in favor of a two-child policy. When that happened, Huang and Lin jumped at the opportunity to have a second child.
But now they face a new decision, after the most recent census showed China's population growth at its slowest pace since the 1960s and the policy was changed again to allow three children per family.
"We are probably neither on the lowest or highest end of middle-class families in Shanghai," Lin said. "But like most Chinese parents, we want to give all our children the best opportunities we can afford, especially in education. If I can't afford it, I would rather not have another baby."
Her two children attend private schools and each has about three or five extra-curricular classes or activities that also come out-of-pocket.
In an online survey conducted by Xinhuanet.com in May, more than 4,200 respondents ticked the box "fear of high costs" on the question about unwillingness to have children.
Among all costs of child-rearing, education ranks high. Most parents plot their children's futures beginning as early as kindergarten and pay for extracurricular courses for years to make sure their offspring get into the best schools to prepare them for the all-important college-entrance exams.
This week, the National Health Commission said more 10 million second children have been born since family-planning policies were first relaxed. The proportion of children aged 0-14 has increased from 16.6 percent in 2010 to 17.95 percent in 2020.
About half of newborns in recent years are second children, a significant rise from about 30 percent in 2013. That has helped the sex ratio at birth drop from 118 males for every 100 females in 2013 to around 111 males now.
But the commission also cited a survey saying that those born between 1990 and 1999 plan to have 1.66 children on average, 10 percent lower than those born between 1980 and 1989. The top three reasons are the heavy economic burden, unattended children while parents work, and the difficult of balancing family and work life.
That's my ideal family size. I always dreamed of having a big house and three children since I was a child, something impossible at the time. Now I have the advantage of flexible time as a freelancer, and we finally have the policy to have three children. It's a plus that there will be some supportive policies, especially measures to protect women's rights in the workplace.
Zhang Yixuan, 27-year-old freelancer
The commission cited pending support policies to help young parents, including lowering the cost of education, stepping up tax and housing support, enhanced maternity leave and insurance, and protecting women's rights in workplace, among others.
Zhang Yixuan, a 27-year-old freelance mobile app designer with a 2-year-old son, said she and her husband anticipated China might further relax the birth policy. The couple had always wanted to have three children.
"That's my ideal family size," she said. "I always dreamed of having a big house and three children since I was a child, something impossible at the time. Now I have the advantage of flexible time as a freelancer, and we finally have the policy to have three children. It's a plus that there will be some supportive policies, especially measures to protect women's rights in the workplace."
Zhang said she quit her previous job after giving birth to her son.
"There was no obvious violation or discrimination in the previous company, but I did sense a somewhat hostile atmosphere from the top about female workers taking maternity leave," she said.
Kate Chen, 36, has two children and underwent an abortion two months ago when she became pregnant again accidentally.
"It was a painful decision, but I don't think I would have chosen otherwise even if the new policy had been in place," she said. "The policy was not my main concern. It was the cost of child-rearing and the fact that my bosses might not be happy about two maternity leaves in two years."
She said the education cost for her 8-year-old son alone is about 150,000 to 200,000 yuan a year, not to mention the toddler classes her 1-year-old daughter is now enrolled in.
Both Chen and her husband work full-time, and she doesn't want to add more burden to grandparents by asking them to take care of another toddler in the house.
"It's increasingly more difficult to get good nannies," Chen said. "Of course, you can hire the best ones if you have the money, and you can quit your job if you don't need the money. It all boils down to money."
Chinese parents are known to spare no expense for their children's education.
Jeff Jiang, a 40-year-old entrepreneur, and his wife started an education fund when they were still in the process of planning their wedding 12 years ago. And the expenses don't stop with education.
"I started saving for my son's future apartment so he could get married even before my wife fell pregnant with him," Jiang said. "It's common that the groom's side pay for a marriage apartment. Then we had a second child – a daughter – and I want to treat my daughter the same as my son. Of course, the more children, the merrier, but there are many things you need to consider as a father."
