New Delhi, Feb 6 (NationPress) From enforcing a strict one-child policy to managing population control, China has now shifted its focus towards encouraging women to have more children in an effort to improve its declining demographic trends, according to a media report.

The Myanmar-based MeKong News indicated that for the last forty years, the government—not women—has been the primary architect of the nation’s birth policies.

Initially introduced in 1979, the one-child policy was aimed at curbing population growth. However, as the nation faces the threat of a demographic crisis, the current push is for women to increase their birth rates.

According to official statistics released in January, the number of births in 2025 plummeted by 17% year-on-year to just 7.92 million, marking the lowest figures recorded since population tracking began in 1949.

“The government in Beijing continues to view reproduction as a tool of economic strategy, rather than a matter of individual rights,” the report noted.

To achieve goals such as “accelerating development, enhancing incomes, and mitigating resource pressure,” the former one-child policy resulted in numerous human rights violations, including forced abortions, involuntary sterilizations, and significant pressure tactics such as detention, fines, and harassment.

The state’s coercive measures “became an enforcement mechanism embedded in local governance, where compliance was linked to administrative performance,” the report elaborated, leading not only to demographic control but also to a systemic form of reproductive surveillance.

Moreover, the traditional preference for sons has distorted the country’s sex ratio.

“Under the one-child limitation, the consequences of having the 'wrong' gender led to severe economic and cultural repercussions for families,” according to the report.

It emphasized that the societal costs have disproportionately affected girls, whose births were frequently perceived as liabilities in a system designed to restrict choices.

China transitioned from the one-child policy to a two-child policy in 2016 and later expanded to a three-child policy as birth rates continued to decline.

“The inconsistency in China’s policy changes highlights a fundamental issue: instead of acknowledging individual rights, the government recalibrated reproductive restrictions based on economic necessities,” the report stated.

While the state is now advocating for increased childbirth, many couples are grappling with escalating living expenses, employment uncertainties, housing challenges, and gender-specific workplace disadvantages.

Notably, due to the imbalanced sex ratio, China is now experiencing a decreasing number of women in childbearing age.

“Even as the government urges more childbirth, women find themselves trapped between policy demands and societal realities,” the report concluded.

It warned that the repercussions of decades of social engineering may be irreversible, despite recent policy reversals.