For subscribers
Tianmen is China’s test site for baby-boosting policies
A visit to the city offering more than $52,000 for second children.
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox
China is throwing money at encouraging more births, but money alone may not be enough to persuade parents to go beyond one bouncing bundle of joy.
PHOTO: AFP
The Economist
Follow topic:
For decades, the ideal for the Chinese family involved two parents doting on their single, precious child. At the maternity hospital in Tianmen, a city in the central province of Hubei, it does not take long to detect how the ideal is now changing.
Outside the hospital’s front doors, a statue depicts parents holding hands with their three young children next to a slogan: “More people, more blessings”. A dot-matrix sign over the entrance carries exhortations such as “Joy is plain as can be – babies one, two, three”. And throughout the hospital, cheery posters show families with multiple children swimming, skating and flying kites.
