Report linking COVID-19 with China’s birth rate decline rebutted

By Riyaz ul Khaliq

ISTANBUL (AA) – Chinese medical experts have rebutted a report that links the COVID-19 pandemic with declining marriage and birth rates in China.

Citing China’s National Health Commission (NHC), Reuters previously reported that “many women are continuing to delay their plans to marry or have children…Rapid economic and social developments have led to profound changes.”

It added that China's “uncompromising ‘zero-COVID’ policy of promptly stamping out any outbreaks with strict controls on people's lives may have caused profound, lasting damage on their desire to have children.”

However, some of the country’s medical experts told the state-run Chinese daily Global Times that such comments are far-fetched and groundless.

The experts noted that a lack of nursing services in China, however, are among “the more prominent factors in childbearing.”

“The COVID-19 pandemic might have added uncertainty to the marriage or fertility arrangements of some people in China, especially those whose jobs were affected, but it is not clear how much and by what mechanism the epidemic contributed to the decline in the birth rate, which is influenced by a lot of factors,” said Lu Jiehua, a professor of sociology at Peking University.

“If the impact of the epidemic is uncertain, it is more difficult to determine the impact of the dynamic zero-COVID strategy on the birth rate. For example, the home quarantine policy might play a positive role in promoting the fertility rate,” he argued.

Citing a report released by the NHC early this month, the daily said: “Women of childbearing age in China have a low desire to have children, and the country's total population will see negative growth during the 14th Five-Year plan (2021-25) period.”

“The population's development in China is facing profound change where an aging society with fewer children will become the new normal,” the NHC had observed in its report released on Aug. 1.

Later, on Aug, 16, inter-departmental support policies were jointly released by 17 Chinese government agencies to “create a friendly environment for marriage and fertility and promote population growth, including measures to develop equitable nursery services across the country, as a lack of proper people to care for children is believed to be the primary factor that prevents childbearing.”

Du Peng, a professor at the School of Sociology and Population Studies at Renmin University of China, said the zero-COVID strategy “has provided a safer environment for Chinese people in both their lives and work.”

The Chinese daily noted that the low fertility rate “relates to social development, increasing levels of higher education and other factors, and any temporary policy has little effect on the general trend.”

“Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, other countries in the world have also seen declines in fertility rates,” it added, pointing to South Korea’s record-low fertility rate in the past four decades.

South Korea recorded the lowest childbirths in 40 years during the second quarter of this year, while deaths rose to an all-time high.