China is facing an insurmountable demographic challenge and long-standing problem with its female citizenry. It is not improving this fall despite cries for reform. Instead, while President Xi Jinping is calling on the country to practice traditional family values, companies ignore the CCP leadership and choose to continue forcing women to take pregnancy tests before hiring a female of child-bearing age. The firms don’t want to assume the cost of maternity leave or to support the modern feminist movement in China.
Just over a year ago, in August 2023, Xi Jinping delivered a key policy speech on the issue of marriage and childbearing during a conference of the All-China Women’s Federation. In his talk he referenced the falling birth rates and encouraged “women to uphold the traditional virtues of the Chinese people” (传统美德) and “promote positive family traditions.” He emphasized the need to “actively foster a new culture of marriage and childbearing” (新型婚育文化).
At the same time as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leadership is calling on women to bear more children, there is ongoing discrimination in the workplace over the fertility issue. A recent Lingua Sinica article pointed out that a report last month in China Worker (中国劳工论坛), a Chinese-language website managed by the Belgium-based International Socialist Alternative, revisited an in-depth study from earlier this year. It says that it “found that local employers in the city of Nantong, in Jiangsu province, were often requiring women to undergo pregnancy tests during the hiring process… [an] investigation found that at least 168 women had been subjected to such tests across 16 companies studied, highlighting systemic discrimination against female workers.” This is only one example among many across-the-board cases of discrimination in China based on marital or reproductive status.
The All-China Women’s Federation (ACWF) publishes a paper called China Women’s News (中国妇女报). It is the official newspaper of the ACWF. Even in this publication propaganda overtakes its stated goal to “sensitize society to women and women to society, advocate gender equality, and promote women’s progress and development.” A review of the front page of the publication from October 9 to October 16, 2024, shows that 60% of the news is centered on government policies and general stories and only 4% is focused on women. Family planning topics pushed by the CCP tie the level of front-page news about President Xi at 16%. In China, women quietly joke that above the fold is “strictly a man’s world” and that it reflects the values of the CCP, not those of Chinese women.
Customs typically take a long time to change, especially in China. Young women are not answering the CCP’s call to immediately birth more babies to stop the population decline. They prefer to remain in the professional workforce, maintain their status, and open lifestyle, in defiance the CCP’s mandate to help the nation repopulate. Even monetary incentives have not been enough to go back to the days of women suffering “wedding hazing” and remaining “barefoot and pregnant.” In an attempt to advocate for marriage, a Shanghai publication called simply The Paper (澎湃), compiled several egregious examples of “wedding hazing” from the past two decades, including shocking acts of violence disguised as tradition and demanded change. It reported that “wedding hazing” serves as an excuse for abusive behavior rather than a genuine cultural practice. During hazing a bride may be tied to a telephone pole, humiliated by bystanders, and pelted with eggs, among other abuses. According to Lingua Sinica, “Historical texts from the Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 AD) recount crude and sometimes violent customs, including physical assaults on both brides and grooms. In the past, this served to break the ice between the bride and groom — often strangers until their wedding day — and to create a jovial atmosphere. Today, acts of ‘wedding hazing’ can also become social media memes, exposing individuals of all genders to online harassment as they are coerced into partaking in these humiliating acts.”
Although the government is calling for change, it will not be in time to reverse the demographic trend that dooms China’s population curve. The decline began in 2021 and is expected to continue as the average age increases and the number of women in child-bearing years declines. Within 70 years China’s population is projected to be 50% the size of today’s number. That makes Xi Jinping a more desperate and unpredictable leader. A question asked this fall in Washington is, what is President Xi willing to do in the near future to secure his country’s future and his own legacy and will it occur before a new president takes office.
Daria Novak served in the U.S. State Dept.
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