Sexist state propaganda in China labels single professional women older than 27 as sheng nu, or leftover women. The Communist party wants China’s women to be docile, baby-breeding guarantors of social, economic and demographic stability.
But young Chinese women are defying rules of their society, delaying or shunning marriage and childbirth altogether, mirroring the journey of women in other, wealthier patriarchal East Asian societies such as Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. As individuals, these Chinese women are generally unwilling to challenge official policy. But through their reproductive choices, they collectively pose a radical and complicated problem for the Chinese Communist Party.
China's previous one-child policy attempted to rein in population growth. But this led to plummeting birthrates, an aging population and a gender imbalance as millions of female fetuses were aborted because of a traditional preference for male heirs. As of 2020, China still had about 17.5 million more men than women between the ages of 20 and 40.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/26/opinion/china-women-reproduction-rights.html
