Younger couples in urban areas also showed no strong preference for sons.
By contrast, my study found that in rural areas many of the married cohorts of the 1980s and 1990s already had a second child. Whether or not rural couples respond positively to the new three-child policy will depend on the genders of their existing two children.
Despite the increased investment in girls’ education in rural China, I found consistent son preference across three generations. If a couple’s two children are both girls, it is therefore highly likely that they will try to have a third child. Indeed, in rural Fujian, where there is a much stronger lineage culture and custom than in many northern provinces, some villagers born in the early 1990s already had three or four children in their efforts to produce a boy heir.
The burden of care
Having three children will have gendered and generational consequences. Gender discrimination is deeply institutionalised in the Chinese labour market. When asked if they planned to have a second child, some of my women interviewees acknowledged that their employers’ unwillingness to bear the costs of their reproductive decisions made it difficult to decide. Unless gender discrimination in the labour market is addressed systematically, choosing to have three children will have a detrimental effect on women’s employment trajectory.
The limited provision of childcare availability for infants under the age of three means that when a new mother’s maternity leave ends (currently after around four months), her mother or mother-in-law will take on childcare responsibilities for their new grandchild. Given the shortage of good quality care homes for elderly people, these grandparents will also have to care for their own parents. In short, having three children will serve only to increase the burden of care on all generations.