The Schedule

Chinese international students are the foremost targets of Trump’s student visa restrictions. Now, their place at Yale and their ability to speak freely seem more precarious.

Chinese international students are the foremost targets of Trump’s student visa restrictions. Now, their place at Yale and their ability to speak freely seem more precarious.

In recent years, the government has offered tax breaks, housing incentives, and fertility treatment coverage to encourage family formation. But these measures are unlikely to work. China’s birth rate has fallen from 2.5 births per woman in 1990 to just 1 birth per woman in 2023. The country’s declining birth rate is not only an economic problem but a cultural one. For many young people, the real barrier is not the cost of raising children. Rather, it is the conviction that parenthood no longer makes sense in a future that feels uncertain and unworthy of investment. Unless policies address this deeper malaise, subsidies and bonuses will do little to stem the decline.

A new study by Yale sociologist Emma Zang links sex-selective abortion bans to negative birth outcomes for Asian immigrant mothers.

Pessimistic about the future, young people in China don’t want to have children – a growing trend that worries the government as it tries to avert a population crisis of its own making.