The ideal worker at the Chinese chemical manufacturer, according to the internal memo, is hardworking, virtuous and loyal. And — perhaps most important — willing to have children for the good of the country. That was the message that the company, Shandong Shuntian Chemical Group, sent to unmarried employees recently, in a notice that spread…
For the first time in almost a decade, South Koreans are having more babies. The 3.6 percent rise recorded in births last year — the first since 2015 — offered a sliver of hope to government officials who have been rolling out greater parental leave and other benefits to try to increase the world’s lowest…
A company in China has been told off by officials after it issued a notice threatening to fire its single and divorced employees if they remain single by the end of September. The Shuntian Chemical Group in eastern China’s Shandong province, which employs more than 1,200 people, announced a policy that vows to boost the…
The number of marriages in China continued to slide last year as the country faced a worsening demographic crisis. Newsweek reached out to the Chinese Foreign Ministry with a written request for comment. Why It Matters After seven years of decline, China’s birth rate ticked slightly upward last year, a shift analysts have attributed to…
The days when Beijing feared overpopulation feel like a distant memory. On January 17, China’s National Bureau of Statistics announced a decline in the country’s population for the third consecutive year. By the end of 2024, China’s population was 1.408 billion, compared to 1.410 billion in 2023—a drop of two million. The situation is expected…
The Chinese government’s flurry of pro-natal policies has been credited with ending last year’s seven-year birth rate decline, but some analysts caution this will prove to be the exception rather than the rule. Newsweek reached out to the Chinese Foreign Ministry with a request for comment by email. Why It Matters Last year marked the…
China’s population contracted for the third year in a row in 2024 despite an uptick in births. Newsweek reached out to the Chinese Foreign Ministry by email with a request for comment. Why It Matters Xi Jinping‘s Chinese Communist Party government has been rolling out measure after measure in hopes of encouraging young Chinese to…
When Dr. Nir Barzilai met the 100-year-old Helen Reichert, she was smoking a cigarette. Dr. Barzilai, the director of the Institute for Aging Research at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, recalled Mrs. Reichert saying that doctors had repeatedly told her to quit. But those doctors had all died, Mrs. Reichert noted, and she hadn’t….
What’s New China is ramping up efforts to counter its plummeting birth rate, with measures ranging from cash incentives to controversial local campaigns urging women to have children. Last year marked the seventh consecutive year of declining births, despite the relaxation of China’s one-child policy to allow two children in 2016 and three in 2021….
What’s New Shanghai has introduced policies encouraging employers to create “childbirth-friendly” positions aimed at supporting people with young children amid mounting concerns over China’s declining birth rate. Why It Matters Despite extensive measures by central and local governments, including the relaxation of the decades-long one-child policy to allow two and later three children, China’s fertility…