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60 pc of China's career women say no to second child: report

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Press Trust of India Beijing
Last Updated : May 09 2016 | 3:57 PM IST
China's new two child policy framed to tackle the deepening demographic crisis has evoked poor response with nearly 60 per cent of the working mothers in the world's most populous nation saying they do not want to have a second child.
According to the report, released ahead of Mother's Day yesterday by Chinese job recruitment site Zhaopin.Com, nearly 60 per cent of working mothers in China don't want to have a second child.
The report also found that of the 29.39 per cent of women who had not given birth, 20.48 per cent said they don't want a child, state-run 'China Daily' quoted the report.
A total of 14,290 career women were questioned by the site on their work and life choices.
Asked why they did not want to have a child, more than 56 per cent of interviewees cited upbringing cost as a concern.
The second concern was the amount of time, energy and attention involved. Other concerns included career risks, the pain of childbirth and little faith in their marriages.

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More than 70 per cent said they would not consider leaving their jobs to become mothers, while only 18.53 per cent said they would take this into account.
Wang Yixin, a senior consultant at Zhaopin, said most career women think it is impossible to live solely on their husbands' pay checks.
"Other reasons involve their own ambitions. They fear that if they stop working, they will become isolated from a dynamic society and lose their career prospects," Wang said.
The ageing population will swell from 16.1 to 25.2 per cent which could seriously test China's social and economic development, said a new data provided by the Population and Development Studies Centre at the Renmin University of China.
In a bid to shore up the numbers of the younger population,China, the world's most populous country with a total population of 1.35 billion, this year ended its three-decades old one child policy and replaced it with two child as the demographic crisis deepened with sharp rise in the population of old people.
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Peng said she is worried about losing promotion opportunities, a concern shared by many women worldwide.
"Chinese women shoulder more family responsibility. It is not just about maternity leave - a female employee might only get back to work three to five years after having her first child. If a job requires frequent business trips, extra work and more attention to work instead of to the family, a capable male candidate would be more suitable," said Feng Lijuan, a senior expert on human resources at a job-finding platform.
"It is not about gender choice - I would say this is a market choice," Feng said.
A study last month said China will face severe demographic challenges in the next 25 years as its working-age population is predicted to shrink to 56.9 per cent of the total population by 2030.

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First Published: May 09 2016 | 3:57 PM IST

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