Cici, 27, doesn’t want to have a baby until she’s at least 35. Her mother is putting pressure on her to get married and “have a stable life”, but with a busy job at a tech company in Beijing – while also completing a master’s degree in law – she hardly has the time to think about starting a family.
Cici’s story is not unique; across the world, young women are putting off marriage and childbirth for longer than their mothers did. However, in China the phenomenon is so acute that last year the population shrank by 850,000, the first decline in more than 50 years, as the birthrate fell to a record low.
