The falling birth rates in China due to the one-child policy are giving nightmares for the Communist regime as it is finding itself helpless in tackling this.
The National Bureau of Statistics reported that only 10.62 million babies were born last year, down from 12.02 million in 2020, and the lowest number in recorded history, as reported by New York Post.
Further, many Chinese men in their twenties and early thirties seem to have simply given up on life.
On the other hand, unlike their fathers and grandfathers, who worked long hours at their jobs so they could buy an apartment, attract a wife, and raise a family, these coddled only sons have trouble getting out of bed in the morning. It's not just indolence; it's an entire way of life.
Millennials are the problem and they are tangping'ers -- the Chinese expression means to "lay flat" -- dedicated to doing just enough to get by in life. Their plans do not include marriage, much less children. It's just too much work for the flat-layers, according to New York Post.
Further, to make matters worse, many young women in China's cities have taken themselves out of the marriage market altogether. They are focused on building careers, not marriages.
Meanwhile, Communist officials continue to insist that China's population will stabilise at its present 1.4 billion, but they are whistling past the graveyard. With Chinese women averaging only 1.3 children, below even Japan's anemic 1.34 children, China is surely already in absolute population decline, filling more coffins than cradles each year, as reported by New York Post.
On the other hand, during the one-child policy, ethnic minorities including Xinjiang's Uyghur population, were allowed to have to three children, which authorities said was in deference of the group's cultural traditions of large families.
( With inputs from ANI )
Disclaimer: This post has been auto-published from an agency feed without any modifications to the text and has not been reviewed by an editor