The high cost of childcare is a major deterrent to having children in China, with many families in an increasingly mobile society unable to rely for help on grandparents who might live far away.
Such decisions by countless people like Mr. Tang will determine the course not only of China’s population but that of the world, which the United Nations says is projected to reach 8 billion on Tuesday.
China was for decades preoccupied with the prospect of runaway population growth and imposed a strict one-child policy from 1980 to 2015 to keep numbers in check. The anguish of the coronavirus pandemic and China’s strict measures to stamp it out may also have had a profound impact on the desire of many people to have children, demographers say.
The proportion of the population over the age of 65 is now about 13% but is set to rise sharply. A declining labor force faces an increasing burden of looking after the rising numbers of old folk.
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