Sun Liping on the Third Child

Sun Liping, “You Want Them to Have Three Children?  First, Give Them a Reason”[1]

Introduction and Translation by David Ownby
 
Introduction
 
Sun Liping (b. 1955) is a prominent professor of sociology at Tsinghua University, as well as an active public intellectual in China, known for his liberal perspectives on social and political issues (see this brief interview for an overview of his basic worldview).  As part of his engagement as a public intellectual, Sun posts frequently to his WeChat feed, generally addressing the issues of the day from a longer-term, sociological perspective in a pithy, understandable way.  The text translated here is drawn from his WeChat feed, and discusses China’s recent decision to permit parents to have as many as three children.
 
This decision, in turn, is related to what some are referring to as China’s fertility crisis, a persistent fall in the birthrate that has authorities and pundits worried about China’s future labor force and expenditures on China’s aging population, more and more of whom will be retiring in coming years.  This is all the more worrisome because the decision by Chinese authorities to end the one-child policy in 2015 has not succeeded in raising birthrates.  The point of Sun’s post is to suggest that fertility issues are in fact economic issues, which means that China cannot promote high-speed economic growth and urbanization without seeing prices for such goods as housing and education rise astronomically, especially in China’s big cities—where almost everyone wants to live. 

Such pressures mean that middle class parents in China are thinking twice before having any children at all, since they hardly have the time to raise them, nor do they have the money to support them as they would like in China’s intensely competitive society (for a taste of this competitiveness see Liu Yu’s text on the educational arms race in China elsewhere on this site).  Sun Liping quite pointedly notes that in the face of such pressures, neither policy changes that “allow” for more children, nor patriotic calls to “reproduce for the motherland” are likely to move Chinese middle classes, whose pragmatic calculations lead them to avoid large families.
 
Translation
 
Having three children was yesterday’s hottest topic.  The question is whether we can still regulate reproductive behavior through policy.  A popular joke is “Do you think I’m not buying a Rolls Royce because of purchasing restrictions?”  Here I’ll share something I published at the beginning of this year. 
 
In the past few days, the news about a precipitous decline in fertility rates in 2020, throughout the country or in some regions, has widely circulated online. There is even a discussion about whether China can get out of the low-fertility trap. There are also further calls to please have a baby for the motherland. From the looks of things, this is indeed a problem, and a big one at that. A few years ago, I said that retirement and childbirth would be the two biggest and most difficult problems for China in the future. 
 
But the problem is, will these “calls” be of any use?  Will promoting the idea of having children for the motherland work?  Because the fact of the matter is that, if you want people to have children, you have to give them a reason.  People’s behavior is driven by motives, which presumably means that the precipitous drop in the fertility rate means a sudden change in people’s reproductive desires.  For this reason, to solve China’s fertility problem, we first must be clear on the basic questions of why people want to have children and in what circumstances they will have children. 
 
Why do people have children?  It comes down to three basic reasons.  The first is instinct.  Like animals, we reproduce out of instinct to ensure that life continues, which requires no other reason.  The second has to do with cultural factors, meaning that this instinct becomes a concept and is solidified at that level.  Maybe I have neighbors with more than ten children.  What’s the motivation for having so many children?  This is what the local culture is like, and the more children you have the more respect you get.  Third, there are utilitarian goals, like having children to take care of you in your old age, or having someone to hand your wealth down to.  In some countries, the more children you have the more subsidies you get, to the point that it can become an important source of income. 
 
Logically, the next question is that, regardless of the reason for having children, you inevitably come up against the question of costs or trade-offs; in other words you have to balance out and think about the relationship between your reason for having children with what it will cost you or what you will have to give up.  And in today’s society, the costs of having children, raising children, and educating childen have clearly gone up.  Not only have real costs increased in terms of money, time, and energy, but opportunity costs have clearly increased as well.  In other words, if you have children, there are many things you will have to give up.  So taking all the factors together, having children only becomes a practical choice if you are motivated enough or if the costs are not too high. 
 
In addition, there is another factor not to be overlooked, which is outside pressure, particularly family pressure.  If we get a handle on factors like motivation, costs, and pressure, we can start to puzzle out the logical relationships between them, and see what choices people might make on the basis of that logic. 
 
As to the meaning of fertility and the desire to reproduce, as mentioned above, the three important reasons for wanting to have children have to do with instinct, culture, and utilitarian considerations.  But all of these factors are changing against the backdrop of increasing levels of urbanization and the need for education, increasing self-understanding, and changing lifestyles. 

Let’s start with the simplest utilitarian factor.  In the context of today’s urban lifestyle and institutional setting, the idea of having children to take care of you in your old age no longer makes sense, and this function is diminishing even in rural villages.  And the idea of having children to inherit your wealth will only occur to a very small number of rich people.  So how do you provide people with a utilitarian reason to have children? 
 
Now let’s talk about culture and pressure.  Cultural pressure for the most part comes from society and the family, and the amount of pressure is decided by cultural characteristics and by the level of density in personal relations.  First, the culture of reproduction is clearly changing in society.  Even more important is that one of the defining features of today’s society is that individual autonomy is expanding, meaning that relations between people are becoming more distant, to the point that all of social life is becoming increasingly anonymous.  All of these factors translate into a weakening of outside pressure.  Today, and especially in the cities, who still lets how other people look at them decide whether to have children?  Another point worthy of notice is that, for a variety of reasons, family pressure is also diminishing. 
 
In fact, why did people have children in the past?  The fact of the matter is that there was no “why.”  Having children is a sort of instinct, part of the natural order of things that doesn’t need a reason.  Like animals, you extend your bloodline, and in the process come to appreciate the meaning of the continuation of life.  It is only now that the “why” comes up.  And one of these “whys” has to do with how we understand human existence and the meaning of life. 

And something we should really pay attention to is that in today’s society, people’s sense of meaninglessness or dissatisfaction with life is getting stronger.  I’ve heard more than one person say that they don’t want to have children who will lead the same life they have led.  This might explain as well why some people would rather have a dog or a cat than a child. 
 
At the same time that people are finding it harder to find a reason to have a child, the pressure of costs is constantly increasing.  What are these costs?  Everyone has talked about this a lot.  The costs of raising a child, school fees, and even the need to find housing for sons.  I have only two things to say about these costs. 

First, we cannot understand these costs simply in monetary terms, because, as some people say, the costs are more in terms of energy.  Leaving other things aside, how much time and energy do we invest simply in after-school child care, extracurricular activities, and homework? 

​Second, even for people that have the economic means, the cost burden is not necessarily reduced, because the better off you are, the higher your expectations are for your child, which means you have to invest all the more.  As everyone says, your choices are to not have children or to be responsible for those you do have. 
 
All of these contradictions and tensions fall mainly on the middle class.  In terms of reproduction, the characteristic of the middle class is that their expectations are high, but they are extremely limited in the extent that they can incur costs.  This is not merely a matter of money.  You can see this is the harried, exhausted figure cut by those working 12 hours a day, 6 days a week.  Yet with the development of the economy, the expansion of the middle class is an inevitable process.  So we can either see a huge middle class as the result and driving force of economic development, or as a group with a declining urge to reproduce.
 
Note

[1] 孙立平, “想让生三胎？请先给他们一个理由,” published online on May 31, 2021 on Sun’s WeChat feed, Sun Liping’s Social Observations.