170 million Chinese families affected by the one-child policy

They are people born between 1976 and 1985. The economic pressure of having to raise their children and at the same time take care of their elderly parents. For China, raising a child to age 18 costs nearly seven times GDP per capita. The situation leads the younger generations to review their options: they decide not to get married and do not want to have children.

Beijing () – The “sandwich generation”, those born between 1976 and 1985 under the one-child policy, have to raise their children while taking care of their elderly parents. The financial and emotional effort that this entails makes this generation the most “oppressed” in the history of communist China. According to academic studies, 170 million Chinese families are in this situation.

By 2025 the country’s population is expected to decline, so the government has abandoned the one-child policy. Difficulties in obtaining money, time and energy are the main concerns of the sandwich generation, especially for couples who have a second child.

as reported caixinAccording to a study by the YuWa Population Research Institute, in 2019, the cost of raising a child up to the age of 18 was, on average, 485,000 yuan (about 69,000 euros) per family. The figure represents about seven times China’s GDP per capita: a level far higher than that of developed countries – bearing in mind that the cost can be even higher in big cities like Beijing and Shanghai.

Analysts note that while the Chinese of the sandwich generation know how to raise their children, they are less able to cope with the difficulties of taking care of their parents. An increasingly aging and less self-sufficient population is a social challenge for the country. And not only because of the pension burden: in China, 80% of children up to three years old (42 million in 2021) are partially dependent on grandparents. Only 5.5% of children are enrolled in kindergarten.

The situation is very serious in rural areas, where half of the population over 65 years of age lives. Older people who live alone often do not have access to health centers, either due to lack of money or because there is no one to accompany them. On the contrary, in the cities – according to a survey published in 2019 by the University of Wuhan, 60% of the elderly with disabilities receive help from their children. But half of them are only cared for about 36 hours a week.

Seeing the concerns facing the sandwich generation, the younger generation decide to review their life options. Hundreds of thousands of women of reproductive age do not want to marry or have children, even when their economic situation would allow them. They feel “traumatized” by the family experiences of friends and acquaintances. For Chinese demographers, it is an emergency that threatens national security.