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Children? No thanks – it’s too expensive in China. Pets and partying are the future, say millennials and beyond

  • As China’s birth rate drops amid soaring childcare costs, more millennials are choosing careers, pets and partying over marriage and children

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Pet owners Li Guangyu and Pixie Lim take their dogs for a swim at a pet centre in Shanghai. Li says he does not want the responsibility of having children. As China’s birth rate drops amid soaring childcare costs, more people are choosing careers, pets and partying over marriage and children. Photo: Justin Jin
Justin Jin

When my brother and his wife had their first child recently in Shanghai, they checked into a post-partum centre, where a team of doctors, nutritionists, physical therapists and nurses help mothers recover and babies grow.

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It felt reassuring, like a medical institution, he said, but with everything else you might fancy, such as a baby swimming pool, delicious meals, a massage room and a spa.

What it does not have is a place for meddling grannies, whom the centre promises to keep at bay.

I realised then that child-rearing, like so many things in modern China, is breaking with the past, when new mothers living under the watchful eyes of their own mothers followed strict rules such as staying indoors and not washing their hair in their first month after giving birth.
Nurses care for newborn babies at a postnatal centre in Hangzhou. Business is booming, says director Ying Zihao, because mothers increasingly want to receive professional postnatal care so they can get back to work quickly and avoid conflict with their own parents, who might expect more traditional postnatal-care methods. Photo: Justin Jin
Nurses care for newborn babies at a postnatal centre in Hangzhou. Business is booming, says director Ying Zihao, because mothers increasingly want to receive professional postnatal care so they can get back to work quickly and avoid conflict with their own parents, who might expect more traditional postnatal-care methods. Photo: Justin Jin
A new mother exercises to tighten her stomach in the Hangzhou postnatal centre. Photo: Justin Jin
A new mother exercises to tighten her stomach in the Hangzhou postnatal centre. Photo: Justin Jin

But these modern choices do not come cheap. My nephew’s first month cost his parents 70,000 yuan (US$9,700), a median fee at maternity centres in top cities where a similar stay can cost up to 300,000 yuan.

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