BEIJING: The makeover of a sculpture of a typical Chinese family at a park in Wuhan, Hubei province, soared to the top of microblogging platform Sina Weibo’s trending list at the beginning of this year, generating 39 million views.
Created in 2017 and titled A Better Future, the stainless-steel sculpture was repainted green. But what was more eye-catching was the addition of two children to the original family of three, creating a family of five. Guo Xue, the designer of the sculpture, told news outlet ThePaper.cn that he was asked by the park’s management to update the sculpture to better reflect the beauty and happiness of family life in the new era.
This family sculpture mirrors China’s efforts in recent years to encourage births, improve the national demographic structure and tackle population aging.
Despite numerous preferential policies rolled out across the country, the demographic curve continues a downward slide. On Wednesday, the National Bureau of Statistics said the total number of people in China fell for a second consecutive year in 2023, dropping by 2.08 million, or 0.15 percent, to 1.409 billion. It takes time for the incentives to change people’s thoughts about having a baby later in life or not having one, experts said.
Following the issue of China’s third-child policy in 2021, local governments have formulated detailed and tailor-made policies to foster a better social environment for having and nurturing babies.
In 2021, Panzhihua in Sichuan province proposed to give 500 yuan ($70) per month per child to local couples who have a second or third child until the children turn three years old, becoming the first Chinese city to allocate a parental allowance. –The Daily Mail-China Daily news exchange item
