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China to cover all out-of-pocket childbirth expenses
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this post was submitted on 15 Dec 2025
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Anything to help people that want to have children is good.
As long as people who don't want to have children aren't pressured. Not everyone is interested in parenting, and that needs to be accepted.
China isn't good about things like that. They have billions of people, they aren't going to worry about the feelings of those not contributing to the machine.
How have you taken a good thing for people and turned it into a bad thing for you.
Can't you just be happy for others without making it about yourself?
China is not doing this out of kindness or altruism in any respects. They don't care about people wanting to have kids. They're doing it because they need more poor people to keep working and replenishing the poor workers, to prop up the elite class. Why can't you see this?
Not isolated to China. Most western countries including the US have the same goals, it's not altruistic.
Yes, there is real concern that measures to prop up birth rates might become coercive. That people may feel pressured to reproduce whether they want to or not.
By who?
There is nothing the cpc could do that would register compared to the pressure exerted by the average parent.
You don't foresee governments being capable of engaging in coercive, if not outright totalitarian measures?
As a simple hypothetical example: consider the effect of banning (or otherwise significantly restricting) contraceptives.
Governments? Yes. China specifically? Probably not. Korea maybe, because they've been having some extremely normal politics as of late.
Chinese dudes I've talked to have lamented the contradictory pressure and social requirements of getting married, I can't predict what kind of policy would help address this. Promoting gay marriage and adoption? Telling parents it's fine if everyone doesn't get married? Housing subsidies for grandparents to move nearby and provide childcare so a smaller dowry is acceptable? Letting immigrants on spouse visas work?
The women I've talked to have mostly lamented the same bullshit women everywhere deal with, dudes cheating or being unwilling to put in the same effort. IDK if these concerns will result in policy changes.
Sure but that's a totally different discussion than the other commentor making it about themselves
I don't live in China, so this isn't about me.
Did you hurt yourself making that stretch?
Exactly it's not about you.
So why are you commenting that some people DONT WANT KIDS and this shouldnt be forced on us.
You are making it about yourself.
The only person trying to make it about me is...you.
Quit trying to make it happen, and stop with the fucking gaslighing.
The original comment was
"Anything that helps people that want to have children is good"
Your response was
"As long as people who don't want to have children aren't pressured. Not everyone is interested in parenting, and that needs to be accepted."
At no point was anyone's talking about forcing people to have kids. You've built a strawman and are arguing about something that nobody is talking about.
You. You have made it about yourself and are now trying to pretend you didn't.
Yeah, the guy you're talking to took "anything" and started talking about some hypothetical rapist government when the original comment clearly says "people that want to have children."
Swing. And a miss
The fact you can't reflect on how your own words come across is a huge red flag
Good luck @EndlessNightmare@reddthat.com
You seem to be the only one using such a stretched interpretation. You went out of your way to interpret something in the worst manner possible. And now you're just fixated on your own misinterpretation and using it to pick a fight. That's the huge red flag you're talking about.
I don't see anyone jumping in here to support you. At least Yawweee seems to get it.
What ever reason china is doing is doesn't negate the fact no one of forcing or pressuring people to have kids.
What the country is doing is making it easier for those that choose to have kids to do so.
Lots people want to have kids but can't because life is so goddamn expensive at the moment.
This allows them to do that.
You are completely free to choose not to. To focus on and say "but what about me I don't want kids" has absolutely no bearing on the fact that lots of people do.
I'm happy for you to not have kids. I hope you grow old and boring. It sounds like we'd be better of if you dont procreate anyway.
Given how overpopulated the planet is, I'm not a fan
It's the planet's own fault for allowing life in the first place
I mean there is only one planet we know of that has life, why shouldn't it be infested with it
nah, disagree. not anything.
Childbirth costs isn't what's preventing people from having babies though
You're right, falling birth rates are affecting people in rich and poor countries alike.
I think the answer is more complicated and has a lot to do with our collective psychology as a species, what we're consuming and what we're feeling about our futures.
That said, money and cost do play a huge role in this. People have complicated feelings on having families right now, and the barrier of cost is a great idea for the brain to seize onto as a validation for avoiding continuation of the species.
That seems somewhat unfair towards people with other interests who aren't being subsidized.
Sadly, when it comes down to it, children are necessary for society to function long-term. They are the people who will be financing and effecting your retirement, at least in a well-functioning society. I think it is a sound policy to make sure people can have children without any unnecessary suffering, there's plenty of necessary suffering in there already.
It shouldn't be sad, this is basic reality. We should love kids and want kids and pressure our own countries to make it easier to have families.
I am really getting worried that the left broadly is turning soft anti-natalist and there is no faster way to end your movement than by not having more people. I feel like "birth rates" and "fertility" are terms that we feel have been co-opted by the right because figures like Elon Musk and the manosphere bros.
How many humans should we aim to have, long term? 20 billion? 50 billion? We're already on track to reach 10 billion in the next 25 years.
I believe that as a society, we should have a long-term plan and a goal for our species's population count, because simply offering incentives for continued growth in order to continue funding generational gaps in our pyramid scheme of social welfare is untenable. Ultimately we will reach the logistical capacity of a functional welfare state, to say nothing of all the other problems.
We probably won't ever hit 11 billion contiguous humans. At least not without colonizing Venus. The birthrates worldwide are dropping quickly, and every time another country passes through the Industrial Age, into the Modern Age, their birthrates fall off a cliff. I suspect we will eventually stabilize around 9 billion people, which is a few billion lower than the maximum projected sustainable population of The Earth.
That's not what this issue is about, this isn't "pro-growth" this is about averting economic and logistical collapse across much of the developed world.
Sure, we could do with a reduced population, but it needs to be reduced slowly enough that we don't see mass casualties and so that our infrastructure, production and logistics aren't suddenly unmanned, or many, many people will suffer.
We have to understand that the argument for continued population upkeep is about stability not some desire to perpetually increase population. There's not a sharp, two-sided binary here, the problem is that many, many people in the developed world are having either no kids or not enough to keep up with expected decline and longer lifespans. When we run out of young people to run our cities, our roads, our offices and our shipyards and rail systems, we end up with collapse.
Look into South Korea for a vision of the worst case and think about what will happen broadly when the same syndrome hits other major world powers and logistical hubs.
I think you're missing the forest for the trees. Continuing to fixate on short-term problems like bridging a generational gap—which incidentally we've survived many times in anthropological history—by continuing policies with long-term ramifications is not a good plan.
At some point we need to come to terms with the fact that continuous population growth is not tenable. Whether the population cap is 10 billion or 100 billion, the fact of the matter is that we will eventually hit it. We can't keep procrastinating because we're unwilling to resolve the challenges you've mentioned in a more effective manner.
Call me an optimist, but if we're unable to change our habits as a species, perhaps a well-needed revolution will kick us into action.
You and people who raise this notion are all for rapid depopulation when you aren't imagining it's you dealing with the impact of billions of people not having enough resources. It sounds a bit entitled.
Lol, and BangCrash went out of their way to be offended by my comment in this post.
BTW, I'm not attacking you and don't really care. I just feel that I was unfairly singled out.
China is thinking long-term and practical. If they lose their young work-force it won't matter what those "other people" are doing or not.
Someone in China told me once that one of the biggest differences between China and Europe/USA is that in the west we think in terms of years or decades. In China they are making plans for the next several centuries.
This isn't a glowing endorsement of the heinous shit China has done, but it should at least make you understand that this isn't a social welfare program designed to help families as much as the first of many measures to fight the forces that are eroding the power and production capability of other countries. If you want to see how bad it can get, look into what the future holds for South Korea.
I agree with this in the basis of the thought. But depending on the social security in various countries there are groups that abuse this help. So I'm hoping that loopholes are plugged at the same time.
How could you abuse this? If I have a child and get my medical costs covered, I don't get any additional benefits if I ditch the child.
That kind of thinking is what stops the US from implementing any kind of decent social programs. If your first concern is ppl taking advantage of it you're not really concerned with helping ppl
Yeah, when I support a social program, it's with the knowledge and acceptance that some abuse will occur. It's just that I think, despite the abuse, the upside is still a superior outcome to not doing it at all. Maybe one day we'll rebuild the cultural fabric to the point where people don't feel so desperate they immediately exploit any crack in the system regardless of the risks or long-term outcomes. With changes in culture and wealth distribution worldwide, I believe global prosperity is absolutely possible.
I can't imagine welfare of any kind is more abused than the process by which the US government farms things out to private companies. If the poor are suckling at the teet of the welfare cow, then private industry is the wolf ripping it's head off. Just look at the clusters of contractors that show up like flies on shit any time the money faucet is opened.
Yeah, I want my neighbors to have heat in the winter, food when they lose their job, and universal childcare. If I have to pay a few extra bucks a year for that it's better than pouring it into the rest of the money-holes in Washington DC.
OP mentions being from another country. I don't have a ton of experience with countries commonly regarded as corrupt, though I did go to Nigeria once; money flows >>differently<< there. But there's also a stronger social fabric. I don't know if I could vote for any tax when there is suck a blatant track record of shady dealings (though it's arguable we've all been doing that). It was fascinating and I hope to go back some day.
I'm not from the US... Not by far. Where I'm from many people abuse the system by having an exorbitant amount of children (10+), get free kindergarten care, extra money, don't work, don't contribute to society, steal, cause issues, etc.
Are you familiar with the term “anecdote”?
This policy that would help hundreds of millions of people could potentially be abused by thousands!
Those who advocate means testing deserve nothing at all
It might help someone I don't like!