Beijing offers Baby Loans – CHINA’S ENIGMA?

China is famous for giving loans world over from Sri Lanka to Africa. But the most populous country of the world which once ruthlessly implemented the notorious one child policy to keep its huge population under control, is now offering liberal loans and many other lucrative incentives to married couples if they have kids and more kids!

Despite revoking the dreaded one child policy of Deng Xiaoping to implementing a third child by Xi Jinping, China has had continuous old low birth rates resulting in an aging population not suitable for its voracious economy. And hence the incentive loans and other incentives. China needs more children (in form of young work force as well as consumers) to defuse a demographic time bomb that threatens to derail Xi’s ambitions to double the Chinese economy by 2035. China’s census data showed that its population growth slipped to its slowest rate since the 1950s.

It is different story that there are few takers. It is a paradox in history that when common people were desperate for babies in China they were not allowed and now with loans and so many inducements couples educated and advanced are not willing to become parents and some youths, mainly girls are not even willing to marry. Even there is a shortage of both brides and bride grooms. Most families have no brother or sister because of the long followed one child policy. They do not have uncles or aunties neither maternal nor paternal since their father and mother had no brother or sister either. All in one-line parents and grandparents (limited to maximum four if alive).

To achieve its ambitious economic goal, Beijing is corralling local administrations and businesses to encourage reluctant women to give birth – by offering everything from liberal loans, baby bonuses, discounted mortgages, paid leave that increases depending on the number of children and a host of other benefits. One Dabeinong Group, one of the biggest agricultural technology companies in Beijing, has been heralded as China’s most generous employer for expecting parents due to benefits that include up to US$14,100 (about 10.5 lakh rupees) in cash and additional leave of up to 12 months for new mothers and nine days for fathers. Cash gifts start at $4,740 ( about 3.5 lakh rupees) for couples having their first baby, with the amount doubling and tripling for the second and third child, respectively. The company also plans to increase maternity leave by one month, three months and 12 months, respectively, on top of what the government guarantees. Other companies are following suit with innovate offers starting from tax breaks to housing incentives. In one of the most dramatic moves so far, Beijing last year banned private tutoring to ease parents’ financial and social pressures, which are often cited as a major reason for not wanting children.

For many of China’s affluent and highly educated women, the efforts to make child rearing more appealing are too little, too late. Having a child would result in no time, no money and no freedom, some Chinese women feel. Decision of many women not to go for a baby was also influenced by social expectations that they do housework and care for children – even when also putting in long hours at the workplace. The oversized responsibilities don’t come with matching privileges: women in China cannot carry on family lineages, while many complain they are denied the kind of support from their own families that would be given for men.

They believe that perks such as baby bonuses and extended parental leave fall flat for women after a lifetime of being seen as inferior to men, discriminated against in the workplace and saddled with responsibilities. At the core of the issue, it is about gender inequality within the family and the rising costs of children’s education and development. Although women make up more than 50 percent of China’s college graduates, advances in education and the workplace are not yet reflected in family dynamics and the public discourse.

Experts say relaxing limits on reproductive rights and offering incentives cannot go a long way in averting an unwanted demographic shift. The main factors behind fewer children being born, they say, are rising costs of living, education, and supporting aging parents. The problem is made worse by the country’s pervasive culture of long working hours infamously as “Nine O Nine.” There has also been a cultural shift during the decades in which the one-child policy remained in force, with many couples believing that one child is enough, and some expressing no interest in having a child at all. Some Chinese youths are opting not to even marry and if at all they marry not to have a child and if they have a baby not more than one.

A survey released by the Communist Youth League in October showed among many unwed urban residents aged 18 to 26, almost 44 percent of the women said they either had no intention of getting married or were unsure whether it would happen — almost 20 percentage points higher than for men in the same category. This is despite all the fabulous financial and other benefits!

Source: Himalayan News Chronicle