Behind the adjustment of the birth registration policy is the relationship between marriage, childbirth and parenting

One

On January 30, 2023, the Sichuan Provincial Health Commission issued new management measures to adjust the birth registration policy and remove the restrictions on whether the registered target is married, which has aroused widespread public concern and discussion. Proponents see this as a guarantee of reproductive rights for unwed mothers, while skeptics worry that the removal of marriage restrictions will encourage out-of-wedlock births.

In response to policy concerns on the Internet, many demographers and legal experts have interpreted policies. The core function of birth registration is population management services. In the area of population management, the goal is to register newborns truthfully so that the country can accurately obtain population data. In terms of population services, it specifically involves the welfare of newborn mothers, including maternity insurance, maternity leave and other benefits, which is an important measure to protect women's reproductive rights.

In reality, some children born out of wedlock cannot be registered normally and are not included in the population database in a timely manner. Unmarried mothers are also unable to enjoy a series of reproductive rights such as maternity insurance and maternity leave because they cannot register for childbirth. Therefore, from the perspective of population management services, the abolition of marriage conditions for birth registration is equivalent to loosening the relationship between marriage and childbirth, which also greatly reduces the practical pressure in the work of population management services.

Therefore, we cannot reverse the causal relationship between policy adjustment and social reality, policy adjustment is the effect, the increasing phenomenon of non-marital childbirth is the cause, and the adjustment of birth registration policy is a response to the problem of increasing non-marital births.

Two

Policy adjustments often reflect important changes in the field of social reality. The increasing phenomenon of non-marital childbearing challenges people's understanding of marriage and reproductive relations. Because in the vast majority of people's ideas, marriage and childbirth are highly related, that is, marriage is a prerequisite for childbearing.

The existing types of non-wedlock births include the following:

First, premarital childbirth, that is, before the man and woman receive the marriage certificate, the woman has become pregnant and give birth. In such cases, the marriage is usually carried out later by the man and the woman. In view of the reversal of the order of childbirth and marriage, public opinion has become more tolerant in recent years.

Second, out-of-wedlock childbearing refers to the birth of children of one married couple and other members of the opposite sex. In reality, the main situation concerned is the reproductive behavior of unmarried women and married men. People on the Internet who question the adjustment of the birth registration policy are mainly aimed at this out-of-wedlock birth, and worry that the indirect effect of the policy adjustment is to reduce the registration cost and psychological cost of out-of-wedlock births.

Third, unmarried childbearing means that although men or women do not have the will to marry, they have the desire to give birth, and after completing the birth in some way, they are willing to raise children independently. In reality, the main situation involved is that some women are financially well-off and do not want to start a family, but want to raise children. The introduction of this policy has also facilitated this group of people. There is also a situation where, after a romantic breakup, the woman discovers that she is pregnant and decides to overcome difficulties to give birth to the child and raise it independently.

For the above types of non-marital childbirth, although we can logically distinguish and evaluate according to certain moral standards, at the business window of birth registration, the staff cannot accurately identify and judge the actual situation of each application.

The complexity and secrecy of the situation of non-marital births in reality go far beyond the regular operational capacity of birth registration departments. This is the direct reason why more and more regions have made adjustments to their birth registration policies. This adjustment is meant to fit reality and cannot be understood the other way around.

Three

Among the many discussions on the phenomenon of non-marital childbearing, the topic of unmarried childbearing is relatively hot. Even some married women with children have expressed their approval of this claim. This not only reflects the willingness of some women to have children independently, but also reflects the current dissatisfaction of some women with the current situation of their husbands' participation in child rearing, fundamentally questioning the relationship between marriage and parenting.

Some married women summarize the current situation of their own parenting as "widowed parenting", believing that husbands rarely or even do not participate, some because they are busy with work and cannot take care of the family, some because of lack of responsibility, only care about games and play, do not care about the family, and even are not independent in life, relying on their wives to take care of them. In this way, women in the family, of course, do not think that marriage will reduce the pressure of childcare, but doubt the necessity of marriage itself.

The increase in divorce rates will also trigger women's reflection on marriage and parenting relationships. Some women see that their sisters take children independently after divorce, and think that instead of raising children independently after divorce, it is better to have children without marriage at the beginning to avoid the harm that divorce brings to themselves and their children. Women with higher economic incomes are more likely to have this idea and believe that they can independently take on the task of parenting.

In traditional society, marriage, childbirth and parenting are highly unified, closely related and mutually guaranteed. Marriage is a prerequisite for childbearing, and the division of labor between the sexes around the child's upbringing also further strengthens the stability of marriage.

At present, the problem of marriage and family lies in the fact that the time, economic and psychological costs required for parenting are getting higher and higher, which puts forward extremely high requirements for the division of labor and cooperation between husband and wife. Improving the quality of childcare requires financial security, requiring couples to devote more energy to work. However, the refinement of parenting requires couples to invest more time and energy in parenting. The effective allocation of time and energy in the work and family situations constitutes the basic contradiction in married life. Even if there are elderly people to help, it is still necessary for the husband and wife to cooperate as much as possible. Perhaps in terms of energy, the wife alone can barely cope, but the psychological level still urgently needs more involvement of the husband and equal parenting.

Economic pressure and parenting pressure increase the anxiety in the couple's family life, test the couple's sense of responsibility and optimistic attitude to life, and test the family's ability to withstand pressure. Some young couples are increasingly conflicted in the face of parenting pressure, relationships are becoming more and more difficult to reconcile, grievances around parenting are accumulating, exhausted, and family life is a mess.

If people lack confidence in the stability of the marriage relationship and lose expectations for cooperative parenting between the sexes, there will be three consequences: first, reduce the sense of meaning of having children, and understand childcare as a burden, which will naturally reduce the willingness to have children; Second, believing that marriage has no meaning will reduce the willingness to marry; Third, women who believe that marriage is meaningless and that parenting is meaningful will prefer to have children out of wedlock.

Four

To stimulate young people's willingness to have children, we should not only focus on improving fertility benefits and lowering the threshold for birth registration, but more importantly, reduce the cost of childcare, reduce the pressure of childcare, and build a more systematic and effective parenting support system.

The ideal parenting model is based on the division of labor and cooperation between husband and wife formed by the marriage relationship. In the family community, there is both economic community and active parenting.

Fei Xiaotong divided child care into physiological and social care in the "Birth System", the former involving the satisfaction of children's physiological needs such as hunger, cold and warmth, and mainly relying on the mother to complete. Social needs require the participation of fathers and mothers to help children socialize smoothly. In many families today, fathers are also actively involved in the physiological upbringing of their children.

The integrity of the family structure is conducive to the completeness of family functions. As children grow up, they can receive joint care and emotional support from their parents, and carry out personality formation and gender awareness in a complete family. It is in this sense that children may face some difficulties in their growth in the case of children born out of wedlock and out of wedlock. After all, family integrity plays a key role in the development of children.

Therefore, only by thinking about the connection between childbirth and parenting can we better understand the issue of reproductive rights protection. Good family parenting function support is more conducive to the realization of women's reproductive rights protection. Without sufficient and stable family function support, the independent practice of individual reproductive rights will be under pressure and even risk.

Five

Public opinion is a mirror that reflects the values that people really care about and care about in their hearts. The unity of marriage, childbearing and parenting affects the basic order and concept of the family. The discussion about the adjustment of the birth registration policy is largely a response to this problem, showing the confusion and anxiety in people's marriage and family during the transition period, and also expressing the strong will of the public to defend family order.

The relationship between marriage and childbirth, marriage and parenting, and childbearing and parenting involves people's basic understanding of family functions and family ethics. The general concern and heated discussion of the relationship between marriage, childbirth and parenting in society itself represents people's defense of the basic order of the family.

Safeguarding family order requires people to take more responsibility and dedication in their own family life, but also to remain optimistic, positive and make ethical behavior choices in the face of the difficulties and pressures of family life, and more importantly, the state needs to build a support system conducive to family development at the macro level.

If the relationship between childbirth and marriage is loosened in the management of population registration services, which reflects the inclusiveness of the birth policy in the new era, then in the long-term process of economic development, social construction and moral cultivation, how to protect family order, how to better coordinate and unify the relationship between marriage, childbirth and parenting, and avoid the decoupling of the three will be an important topic in population development and family construction in the new era.

More importantly, our population development strategy cannot be simply positioned on the growth of population quantity, but should also pay special attention to the improvement of population quality. The quantitative growth of the population that ignores quality care is not a high-level population production model. The factors affecting the quality of population production include not only the level of economic development and school education, but also the complete family structure, harmonious family relations and the stable and orderly parenting environment determined by them.

It is precisely in this sense that the unity of marriage, childbirth and parenting in population development is crucial, because it affects people's family concepts, affects the firmness of people's family beliefs, and affects the formation of people's sense of meaning in family life.

The sense of meaning formed in marriage and family life is an effective spiritual driving force for people to marry and give birth. In the process of producing human material materials, spirit can become material. In population production, this logic also applies.