The Communist Party of China is aiming to push women back into traditional roles, as a solution to the country’s demographic crisis and economic slowdown, New York Times has reported.
“We should actively foster a new type of marriage and childbearing culture,” President Xi Jinping said at the opening of the National Women’s Congress, adding that it was the role of party officials to influence young people’s views on “love and marriage, fertility and family”.
Xi also encouraged female leaders to “tell good stories about family traditions and guide women to play their unique role in carrying forward the traditional virtues of the Chinese nation.”
Notably, the officials at the event focused instead on using the gathering to press Xi’s goal for Chinese women: get married and have babies.
As per the report, faced with a demographic crisis, a slowing economy, and what it views as a stubborn rise of feminism, the CCP has chosen to push women back into the home, calling on them to rear the young and care for the old. The work, in the words of Xi, is essential for “China’s path to modernization.”
