China’s government is badgering women to have babies
It is testing an expanded pro-natalist playbook
MS MAO WAS making lunch one day at her home in the eastern city of Wuxi when she got the phone call. Rather than the courier’s delivery update she was expecting, she found herself subject to an intimate interrogation by a neighbourhood official: When was your last period? Are you pregnant? Do you plan to have a baby? “It doesn’t seem like the kind of thing that could happen in the 21st century,” says the 28-year-old.
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This article appeared in the China section of the print edition under the headline “Exercises in fertility”
From the November 30th 2024 edition
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