China is in the grip of a gender war. While government officials are texting and even cold calling women to urge them have children, the fertility rate continues to drop. Better educated and often better paid their male peers, many urban Chinese women are simply choosing not to marry. To discuss the growing female backlash to the Party’s pro-natal policies, Louisa and Graeme are joined by Chloe Mofei Shen, lifestyle director of Elle China and Qiqi Huang, post-doctoral fellow at the Institute of Advanced Studies at the University of Macau.

Image: “Marrying late has many advantages”, BG E15/716, Landsberger Collection, 1975.

Show transcripts available at https://www.thechinastory.org/lrp/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.