A Chinese professor has sparked a public backlash after he asked a visiting Kazakh diplomat how to make Chinese women “have children obediently, early and in large numbers” at a think tank event. Wang Xianju, a professor at Renmin University and a former counsellor at the Chinese embassy in Belarus, was speaking to Erlan Qarin,…
Billionaire Elon Musk, known for his futuristic visions, recently claimed that Singapore’s low birth rate is an alarming sign and the country is on the verge of extinction. Elon Musk, chief executive officer of SpaceX and Tesla and owner of X. “Singapore (and many other countries) are going extinct,” Elon Musk said in a…
China is expected to lose over 50 million people in the next decade as its population decline accelerates, according to a new analysis. By 2025, China’s population is projected to drop from its 2021 peak of 1.41 billion to 1.36 billion, Ada Li, a senior industry analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, said in a forecast based…
China’s government is pursuing a misguided and perhaps futile course in its efforts to raise the country’s fertility rate, one of the world’s lowest, analysts say. China ended its one-child policy in 2016, increasing the cap to two children and then to three in 2021. But these and other measures at both national and local…
A city in southern China has launched bold initiatives and slogans to encourage marriage and boost birth rates, igniting widespread controversy. In October, Changsha, the capital of Hunan province, unveiled the country’s first “marriage-themed” cultural street. The historic street showcases both Chinese and Western wedding scenes, providing visitors with plenty of photo opportunities. However, what…
Local governments in China have begun contacting women of childbearing age as part of efforts to reverse the country’s flagging birth rate. In a now-deleted report published Monday by Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post, a woman from Fujian province surnamed Huang, 35, recounted how surprised she was to answer a phone call from a…
Nov 01, 2024 06:54 AM IST ASIA-POPULATION/CHINA-SURROGACY:China surrogacy abandonment case being investigated after online criticism HONG KONG, – A 28-year-old woman who acted as a surrogate in China’s southwestern city of Chengdu is said to have been abandoned by her surrogacy agency, fuelling tides of criticism on social media and prompting health authorities to investigate…
New and expecting mothers are among those competing to buy a Hong Kong home in the first round of subsidised flat sales since a scheme was revamped to encourage families to have children by providing them priority access to the purchases. Applications for the Home Ownership Scheme opened on Thursday, with those eligible entering a…
China’s top legislature has reviewed a plan to gradually raise the retirement age, months after the ruling Communist Party’s Central Committee proposed it be lifted in a “voluntary and flexible” way. The retirement age has been in place since 1951 and is among the lowest in the world. It is currently 60 for men, 55…