Why is there a "can be born but do not want to be born"? Scholar: Women think that childbearing is more like a solo journey

"As the main bearers of childbearing, some of them have better economic conditions, more support for raising, and more child-friendly mothers at work are not even willing to have a second child."

What are the factors that influence their fertility decisions? Recently, a paper published in the 3rd issue of 2022 "China Youth Research" introduced, based on the in-depth interview with 10 "born" mothers in Chongqing, it was found that they have higher expectations for workplace development, child companionship, intimate relationships, and personal life, and under the influence of factors such as maternal function education, lack of spouse parenting, indifferent relationship between husband and wife, and poor physical experience in pregnancy, women believe that the road to fertility is more like a person's journey, full of risks and loneliness.

The article believes that the fertility decisions of these women reflect the "mosaic model" of modern and traditional intertwining, in the context of individualization, only by respecting their subjectivity and creating deep emotional connection and support can the second child of the "birth" mother be possible.

The authors of this article are all from the School of National Governance of Southwest University, namely Associate Professor Chen Wei and Lecturer Luo Minmin. The article mentioned that because the two-child family base is relatively small, the scale of women of childbearing age shrinks, the willingness to have children and the low fertility level, the mainland population conditions do not have the realistic basis for inducing new birth peaks or obvious accumulation of three children, how to effectively enhance the willingness of one-child families to have two children, increase the size of two-child families, is the key to the effectiveness of the three-child new deal.

The article believes that according to the two dimensions of parenting ability and fertility willingness, the fertility population can be divided into four categories: "willing, capable", "willing, incompetent", "capable, unwilling", "incompetent, unwilling", corresponding to the four fertility states of "want to be born", "dare not give birth", "do not want to give birth", "do not dare to give birth", "do not dare to give birth and do not want to give birth". At present, the mainland's three-child policy and supporting measures from the education, medical care, pension, childcare, women's rights and interests and other aspects of the all-out attack, the main goal is to solve the problem of parenting ability, is to have a second or third child, but due to various obstacles and "dare not have" parenting age couples to propose solutions. However, a large number of mothers of childbearing age in society face a completely different living situation, their economic situation is better, social resources and care support are very sufficient, in the public's perception of the "should be born" state, in the face of having a second child, clearly show a "unwilling to have, do not want to have, why should have" attitude, its birth decisions and fertility behavior is much lower than social expectations.

The study's material was derived from semi-structured interviews with 10 mothers living in Chongqing with children aged 2 to 12. The 10 interviewed mothers, aged 28 to 38 years old, are in childbearing age, the academic qualifications are bachelor's degree or above, of which only 1 full-time mother, the other 9 jobs are mostly in the fertility friendly department (government or public institutions), the income is 120,000 to 250,000 yuan, all families after tax annual income of more than 400,000 yuan, the support system is very complete. Most of the parents interviewed are retired unilaterally or bilaterally, living in the same city as the interviewees. Respondents were all younger than 32 years old in childbearing, and their children were between the ages of 2 and 12, which roughly covered the current age of children from kindergarten to primary school graduation. Because a child is over 2 years old, the mother is restored through recuperation and has the basic conditions for reproduction.

The article mentions that the mothers interviewed in this study have four expectations of themselves:

The first is that women's expectations in the traditional gender division of labor have not diminished, and they hope to be good mothers, valuing their children's emotional companionship, parenting quality and all-round development.

The second is to look forward to becoming a workplace elite, hoping to become a representative of modern women in terms of body image, professional skills, and coping.

The third is to manage intimate relationships, maintain the development of love, and maintain individual attraction and romantic quality of life.

The fourth is to hope to take into account personal interests, friends, hobbies, and live a rich and wonderful life.

The author points out that most of the women interviewed by the institute have good educational and career development skills, and it is precisely because of the socio-economic environment in which they live that they hope to obtain a state of fullness in life, and become strong women whose careers are not inferior to others, mothers full of love and wisdom, sentient and talented wives, individuals who can entertain themselves who understand life, and have a comprehensive harvest of family, work and life. It is not easy to achieve even one aspect of the fourfold expectation, especially the motherhood has greatly increased their scope of responsibility and degree of worry, so that they can only infinitely compress the time and energy that belong to themselves. However, the efforts of the women interviewed by this institute are often one-way, and in the context of "everything for the sake of children", the love of spouses, families and society often flows to the children, ignoring them, and they deeply lack understanding and respect, resulting in a state of mind of "why do you want to have children" and "why do you want to have children".

"Becoming a mother is not just a biological event, the process of conception is also accompanied by changes in identity and social relations, which bring about strong changes in the state and meaning of women's existence." It is mentioned that women in the reproductive stage have become the object of protection, their normal social roles have been destroyed, their personality and social relations have been disturbed, and the women interviewed have expressed resistance to this special care.

The article mentioned that the women in the interview are in the traditional gender expectations and the modern independent female identity of the wrapped, in the mother's role, work pressure, intimate relationship, individual life of the game, most women choose to give up their individual life to meet the other three, especially to meet the requirements of maternal work and work, accompanied by widowhood and child-rearing, indifference to the relationship between husband and wife, and the main body of physical experience to dissolve, forming a more negative subjective experience, making these "should be born" mothers avoid giving birth to a second child.

In the author's view, the "birth" mothers have high expectations in the four aspects of child upbringing, professional identity, intimacy, and individual life, and as the main bearers of childbearing, they swing and struggle between these four forces, and make decisions about whether to live or not to give birth from themselves. In this process, emotional factors play an important role, in the absence of intimate emotional nourishment in the environment, even if the nurturing force is well-built, the economic resources are sufficient, women still feel helpless, disappointed and lonely, under the external multiple pressures, not born is their trade-off, and can take into account the quality of parenting, individual development, husband and wife relationship and individual life and make choices, in line with women facing structural pressure, through subjective expression to construct the order of life of the autonomy logic.

The article finally proposes that in today's Chinese structure imbalance and fertility rate continues to decline, the dilemma and pressure faced by women in childbearing may become a social problem worthy of attention, which needs to be guided and reshaped. It is precisely for this reason that the country urgently needs to meet the overall needs of population development rather than the individual needs of women, which is also one of the macro factors that cause the internal demands of "the student" but not the birth of women to be expressed. Women as the main body can take the initiative to choose to have a second child, but because there is no warm feeling to organically condense all this, they are lonely, depressed and depressed in their hearts, and the road to fertility is as desolate as an abandoned street. Therefore, seeing the importance of individual choice in reproductive decision-making, using warm, empathetic, and sincere mainstream discourse and system construction to coordinate women's inner softness, and creating a micro and macro environment conducive to relationship development and intimate construction, is the key to solving these mothers who should be born but not born, after all, external support is difficult to let these "born" mothers have children.