China has launched a campaign for singles to compete, get married and have children.

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As Beijing grapples with an ever-worsening demographic crisis, China has stepped up a nationwide campaign to persuade singles to meet, marry and have children.

Local governments are calling on married women to question their childbearing plans and are offering money to encourage parents to have more than one child.

Universities have been asked to promote so-called romance courses for single students, and there are regular articles in state media about the benefits of having children.

China’s population is shrinking. The number of deaths is greater than birthsPutting pressure on local governments to address the ever-increasing demographic situation.

“ChinaRenowned economist Ren Ziping said in an interview with the local press last month, “Population has three main trends: aging, low birth rate, and low marriage rate.” “There are young children and many elderly people. The speed and scale of China’s aging is unprecedented.

Beijing has promised subsidies to parents and big tax cuts to lower the cost of raising children. The State Council, China’s cabinet, said in October it was developing a plan to build a “birth-friendly society” as part of a broader stimulus package to tackle the ailing economy. The details of this plan are still being hammered out.

Meanwhile, married women in their 20s and early 30s across the country who spoke to the Financial Times and posted on social media are getting calls from local authorities asking about their plans to start a family.

In some cases, callers asked women to participate in prenatal physicals. Other callers were more straightforward, offering subsidies to women who had more than one child. A couple must have an average of 2.1 children to reach the population replacement rate.

Officials in Zhejiang, who did not want to be named, offered local women a subsidy of Rmb100,000 ($14,000) to give birth to a second child. “There is no clear policy, but if you ask, the village will find a way for you to get the subsidy,” she said.

The personalized lobby comes with a background Intensive media campaign Praise the benefits of childbirth. In recent months, the government-published People’s Daily and Life Times have provided scientific reports that childbirth is good for mothers’ health and can help prevent cancer and treat some diseases.

In December, a government-run publication by the National Health Commission urged universities to develop “marriage and love education courses” to encourage students to get married.

“Universities are an important place for college students to fall in love,” the study said, with 57 percent of students not wanting to be in a relationship because of their heavy workloads.

The article suggested that universities introduce courses on the theory of love and introduce “systematic knowledge of love and marriage” into real-life issues.

However, experts are skeptical that official measures to boost the birth rate will convince young people to start families, especially as unemployment rises and the costs of rapid economic growth continue to grow.

According to Wang Feng, an expert on Chinese demography at the University of California, Irvine, the authorities are using a “playbook for using administrative power to achieve demographic goals” that has been seen in the one-child policy era, the 35 years since 1980. When families are limited to having one child.

He said that while Beijing has successfully stopped couples from having large families, it is difficult to use administrative powers to achieve the opposite effect. “Such old wine in new bottles is not effective; Because the causes of late marriage and low fertility are completely different.

Shen Yang, a female writer, said that people can “see through the propaganda”.

“If the government wants to strengthen the birth rate, it should create a more friendly environment for parents, especially single mothers,” she said.

Although Beijing is encouraging births, there are no signs. Restricted birth control or abortion. While there may be cases where gynecologists in Beijing refuse to perform certain procedures, these cases are often a concern of legal action from family members, he said.

Still, Wang said officials face an uphill battle to convince today’s young women and men, who are “the most educated generation in Chinese history” to have children.

“Not only is it a high cost of living, especially for young women, but they also face significant penalties when they leave the workplace to have children.”