Speaker 1: I'm Ruby Jones and you're listening to seven AM. Condoms
Speaker 1: and other contraceptives are set to become more expensive in
Speaker 1: China as the Communist Party tries to boost population growth.
Speaker 1: With the economy slowing, birth rates declining, and for population aging,
Speaker 1: the government is now trying all kinds of ways to
Speaker 1: make women have more babies, from taxing contraception to new
Speaker 1: laws on marriages, to cash bonuses and propaganda campaigns. Reproduction
Speaker 1: is now seen as a national security issue, and the
Speaker 1: success or failure of the new policies will have far
Speaker 1: reaching consequences for China's economic and military strength and for
Speaker 1: countries like Australia who rely on China continuing to grow.
Speaker 1: Today seeing an analysts at the Makata Institute for China Studies
Speaker 1: Daria in Biombardo on the threat to women's autonomy in
Speaker 1: China's new phase of population control. It's Friday, December twelfth.
Speaker 2: Now. Despite government leaders stressing that things are looking up,
Speaker 2: Chinese economic growth has recently faltered. For a long term boost,
Speaker 2: state and party leader Sijiping is relying on domestic consumption. However,
Speaker 2: there is a problem. China's population is aging.
Speaker 1: So Daria in China. Right now, we've got a population
Speaker 1: who are getting older. At the same time the birth
Speaker 1: rate is slowing down dramatically. So what does it mean
Speaker 1: for China to have those two factors at play.
Speaker 3: Well, you know, the population is not only getting old,
Speaker 3: but it's also shrinking. So China has been classified as
Speaker 3: an aged society according to you know you and parameters,
Speaker 3: which means that more than fourteen percent of the population
Speaker 3: is now above the age of sixty five. And so
Speaker 3: that means that eventually also the workforce will start shrinking,
Speaker 3: and that's a problem for China's economic prospects.
Speaker 1: A plummeting population rate could threatn economic growth. The current
Speaker 1: situation is a major concern for the authority.
Speaker 3: It's definitely a domestic economic concern, but it also you know,
Speaker 3: impacts China's international ambitions as a global superpower. So it's
Speaker 3: something that has reverberations across all sectors of society.
Speaker 1: And I suppose tell me a bit more about what
Speaker 1: it kind of looks like when those things happen, Like,
Speaker 1: what is the kind of demographic situation.
Speaker 3: Well, you obviously have a lot of people entering retirement
Speaker 3: age and sort of requiring support from the state. Now
Speaker 3: we don't hear about this very much, but in the
Speaker 3: sort of local governments in China, the finances are actually
Speaker 3: pretty tight. A lot of local governments are in debt,
Speaker 3: so the situation is already quite die, especially when it
Speaker 3: comes to pensions. The pension fund's risk running out very soon,
Speaker 3: and then once the labor force starts shrinking, it means
Speaker 3: that there will be less people paying tax.
Speaker 1: Okay, can we take a step back and talk about
Speaker 1: how China got here? Because I think a lot of
Speaker 1: the time when we think about China and we think
Speaker 1: about children, we obviously think about the one child policy,
Speaker 1: which dates back to the eighties. For the next thirty years,
Speaker 1: at least, all couples may only have one single child each.
Speaker 1: The Chinese have been very swift in implementing this policy
Speaker 1: throughout China. So how has that affected the population and
Speaker 1: what we're seeing today?
Speaker 3: So the birth rate had already started shrinking before the
Speaker 3: one to hold policy was sort of enforced. But then
Speaker 3: for you know, more than thirty years, we had these
Speaker 3: extremely corrosive measures that were imposed on families and especially women.
Speaker 3: Financial finds and a lot of surveillance across society, but
Speaker 3: also often forced abortions, forced serilizations, which was very traumatic
Speaker 3: for women, and a lot of those women have very
Speaker 3: fresh memories. And so now you've kind of experienced this
Speaker 3: one eighty from the authorities not trying to push for
Speaker 3: more birds. The restrictions have never gone away, it's just
Speaker 3: that now the ideal family is one with two or
Speaker 3: three children.
Speaker 1: Okay, So how has that affected the way that women
Speaker 1: think about families and motherhood.
Speaker 3: Well, I think that it's not just the one child
Speaker 3: policy that has influenced this, but the number of marriages
Speaker 3: every year continues to deep like it's basically never been
Speaker 3: this slow. We have a much much larger section of
Speaker 3: people with higher education. You know, the vast majority of
Speaker 3: young women these days are very highly educated. They're probably
Speaker 3: located in urban centers, and so the standards of living
Speaker 3: have changed. People have different expectations from their life now,
Speaker 3: and there is this sense that having a child will
Speaker 3: severely impact your standard of living, especially for a young
Speaker 3: urban couple, because having children in China's become so expensive.
Speaker 3: By some estimates, it's actually more expensive to raise a
Speaker 3: child in China than it is in the US or
Speaker 3: in Japan right now, and especially things like the cost
Speaker 3: of education. So you know, it's so many factors that
Speaker 3: play into this decision. Organizations like national family planning organizations
Speaker 3: or the Women's Federation, they basically want to make it
Speaker 3: cheaper for young people to get married, so they offer
Speaker 3: the opportunity to just get married on mass and all
Speaker 3: expenses covered, and they also receive a patriotic marriage badge
Speaker 3: from the authorities. But you're probably only going to convince
Speaker 3: people who wanted to get married in the first place,
Speaker 3: didn't have the money to do so. I don't think
Speaker 3: that's convincing anyone who didn't want to get married in
Speaker 3: the first place.
Speaker 1: Coming up, the government's not just trying to encourage women
Speaker 1: to have children, it's trying to coerce them. While this
Speaker 1: is happening, while attitudes towards marriage and motherhood are changing,
Speaker 1: particularly among young people in China, there is this coordinated
Speaker 1: national push by the Chinese Communist Party to try and
Speaker 1: reverse that. So tell me a bit more about what
Speaker 1: that actually looks like what we're hearing from President she
Speaker 1: and the campaigns that are underway.
Speaker 2: We will implement policies to stimulate the birth rate, and
Speaker 2: we will lead a national strategy to find solutions to
Speaker 2: our aging population.
Speaker 3: So Sudinping is framing childbirths within the context of national rejuvenation,
Speaker 3: you know, and that the message is obviously that having
Speaker 3: children is not just a personal choice, but you know,
Speaker 3: it has to be a contribution to the country. It's
Speaker 3: for the future security of the country. And so officials
Speaker 3: are told or like directed to guide people first to
Speaker 3: marry because childbirths outside of wetlock is still frowned upon,
Speaker 3: but also to have children at a proper age, so
Speaker 3: called proper age. So you have this kind of sharing
Speaker 3: of pseudo scientific theories around motherhood and how motherhood is
Speaker 3: healthier for women, or that you know, at some point
Speaker 3: is actually great if you could study and have children
Speaker 3: at the same time, which is the complete opposite of
Speaker 3: what authorities were saying up until ten years ago. Do
Speaker 3: you see these campaign celebrating mothers and messages about family duties,
Speaker 3: especially for women. So that kind of narrative around women's
Speaker 3: rights in general quality has turned back again to traditional
Speaker 3: confusion values of women's primary role or as caregivers. There
Speaker 3: is a small effort to get men to contribute a
Speaker 3: bit more to household duties and then care duties it's
Speaker 3: probably short sighted. It will take a long time for
Speaker 3: that to change, especially when women are still the ones
Speaker 3: who have to sacrifice their careers and that's something that
Speaker 3: happens as soon as they have a child.
Speaker 1: Okay, So there's this attempt to try and change the
Speaker 1: way that people think about marriage, right, but there's also
Speaker 1: there's some I guess more heavy handed approaches at play
Speaker 1: as well. Out then new laws, new policies tell me
Speaker 1: about those.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So at the moment, there's this combination of support
Speaker 3: and pressure on paper. The government is trying to expand
Speaker 3: child care services, to offer subsidies. Actually this year, for
Speaker 3: the first time, we had a national level cash subsidy introduced,
Speaker 3: and so the support is kind of being announced and
Speaker 3: it's there in some places, but not everywhere. And so
Speaker 3: at some point you need to pair this support with
Speaker 3: more coercive measures, and you know, you start, for example,
Speaker 3: having tighten access to abortion or contraception. There is a
Speaker 3: push to decrease the number of abortions in China because
Speaker 3: it's still the country with the highest number of abortions globally.
Speaker 3: But then you know, they do things like taking contraceptives
Speaker 3: of the tax exempt item lists, so it's likely that
Speaker 3: next year the cost of condoms and things like that
Speaker 3: is going to increase.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I wanted to ask about that because some of
Speaker 1: these measures do seem quite punitive and coercive. So how
Speaker 1: are people responding to having the state intervene in this way?
Speaker 3: I would say mostly with skepticism. It's obviously, especially among
Speaker 3: young people and women, there is a sense that actually
Speaker 3: the party is not interested in solving the basic structural
Speaker 3: issues that they're facing, like high living costs or long
Speaker 3: working hours, or these issues with gender equality, but simply
Speaker 3: just trying to pressure them more. And this can easily backfire.
Speaker 3: What a lot of women are saying is that they're
Speaker 3: not convinced. They still don't want to get married, and
Speaker 3: they still don't want to have children.
Speaker 1: And you said that this is really for the CECP
Speaker 1: at least about the security of the country. So what
Speaker 1: you know, what happens. I suppose if this attempt to
Speaker 1: get people to have families, to get married, to have
Speaker 1: more children, if that doesn't work, how concerned is the
Speaker 1: CECP about that.
Speaker 3: I think the CCP and the leadership more broadly are
Speaker 3: quite worried because they have seen this play out already.
Speaker 3: In other countries, and this trend of population and shrinking
Speaker 3: is almost irreversible. I mean, once it starts happening, it's
Speaker 3: really really hard to turn around. So, you know, China's
Speaker 3: sort of development is funded on this sustained you know,
Speaker 3: economic growth, and that risks being impacted by this demographic shift.
Speaker 3: So I think that the ambitions that Sidinping has for
Speaker 3: China's a global superpower are looking more shaky from a
Speaker 3: domestic perspective when looking at this issue in particular, and
Speaker 3: what about.
Speaker 1: What it means for women in China more broadly. I
Speaker 1: mean for it to be more difficult for you to
Speaker 1: get contraception or get an abortion. I mean, these are
Speaker 1: significant things that impact women's life. So how do you
Speaker 1: think about the future for women when they're kind of
Speaker 1: in this situation?
Speaker 3: There are really worrying trends. One of the things that
Speaker 3: I mentioned in the report is even a court case
Speaker 3: that happened a year and a half ago, I believe,
Speaker 3: And in that court case, specifically, the judge rule that
Speaker 3: a woman had infringed on her husband's reproductive rights because
Speaker 3: she had an abortion without his consent. And you know,
Speaker 3: the domestic violence rates in China are still very high,
Speaker 3: and this is just quite concerning on so many levels,
Speaker 3: like it could impact even women's education prospects and definitely
Speaker 3: women's labor rights. I mean, even if the government can
Speaker 3: promise that they will give more paternity leaves so that
Speaker 3: fathers also can look after children, companies are not really
Speaker 3: doing that right now, and there's not enough subsidies for
Speaker 3: private companies to do that, and so it is worrying
Speaker 3: what's happening in China. But I also see it as
Speaker 3: a bit of a global trend, you know, where you
Speaker 3: see this focus on women's rights and gender equality retreat,
Speaker 3: there are similar narratives across Europe and the United States
Speaker 3: of returning to traditional family values and especially restricting women's autonomy.
Speaker 1: Well, Daria, thank you so much for your time, Thank
Speaker 1: you so much. Also in the news, Anthony Alberenzi has
Speaker 1: defended his government's use of expenses, saying the rules are
Speaker 1: set at arm's length from government. The Prime Minister and
Speaker 1: Communications Minister Anika Wells have been repeatedly asked about her
Speaker 1: spending while the pair are out trying to promote the
Speaker 1: new social media band for teenagers, which went into effect
Speaker 1: on Wednesday. When he was asked if the rules should
Speaker 1: be changed, Mister Abenezi said he's not. The Finance Minister
Speaker 1: and property developers in Queensland are set to be able
Speaker 1: to make political donates again as the state government introduces
Speaker 1: new legislation to lift a ban.
Speaker 2: The practice was.
Speaker 1: Outlawed in twenty eighteen by the former Queensland Labor government
Speaker 1: after the Crime and Corruption Commission recommended that local councils
Speaker 1: should not be able to receive money from developers, and
Speaker 1: they expanded it to include state candidates. Debate on the
Speaker 1: legislation will begin when Parliament resumes in the new year.
Speaker 1: I'm Ruby Jones. This is seven am. Thanks for listening.