China is calling women, asking when their last period was, and urging them to get pregnant

Women successful China accidental they are receiving telephone calls from authorities workers to inquire if they are presently expecting a kid and to impulse them to get pregnant.

Jane Huang, a mother-of-one, said a authorities authoritative who called her went truthful acold arsenic to probe her astir erstwhile her astir caller play was.

The 35-year-old, who lives successful the state of Fujian, said the idiosyncratic who called besides suggested helium could telephone her successful the aboriginal to punctual her erstwhile she should person different child.

“I laughed truthful hard erstwhile I told my hubby astir it,” Ms Huang told the South China Morning Post.

“The surveyor indispensable beryllium from the erstwhile generation, who did not realise that she was talking to a full antithetic procreation that values privacy, prime of beingness and choices overmuch more”.

District-level officials from 3 coastal provinces, who did not privation to beryllium named, told the work that Ms Huang’s feelings astir the calls were “very common”. 

CNA reports a station shared connected the Chinese societal media level Xiaohongshu, which states “I got a telephone from a grassroots (worker) this greeting asking if I was pregnant” has received a large woody of traction - gaining much than 11,000 likes and thousands of comments.

China has a plunging commencement complaint that has continued to diminution contempt attempts to promote citizens to person much children.

The state rolled retired a stringent one-child argumentation successful 1979 to curb the accelerated increasing colonisation – with the country’s commencement complaint plummeting since the precocious 1980s.

China was the state with the largest colonisation successful the satellite until irt was surpassed by India successful April 2023 - with China axing the one-child argumentation successful 2015 and alternatively introducing fiscal incentives for couples to person astatine slightest 2 children. 

The concern successful China reflects wider planetary trends, with fertility rates dilatory declining astir the satellite and falling by much than fractional since the aboriginal 1960s.

In 2022, the planetary full fertility complaint was 2.3 children per woman, portion it was 1.5 successful the European Union.

On Monday caller authorities information revealed the fertility complaint successful England and Wales has dropped to its lowest level since records began successful the 1930s. Figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) amusement the full fertility complaint – the mean fig of children a pistillate has successful her beingness – was 1.44 children per pistillate successful 2023, the lowest since records started successful 1938.