No Sex Please We’re Chinese

After decades of limiting the population. the ChiComs aren't producing enough babies to keep the economy afloat because they're too tired to have sex!

From Bitter Winter

By Duan Sheren

China’s demographic crisis, according to a researcher, has a very simple explanation: Chinese work too much, and are just too tired to make love.

China has a demographic problem, with 1.3 average births per woman, far below the replacement level of 2.1. The government, once imposing a strict birth control, is now very much concerned that not enough babies are born in the country and the population is aging, with negative consequences on the economy.

Besides abolishing, after the one-child policy, the two-child policy as well, the CCP is organizing scholarly conferences and asking researchers to look for the root causes of the demographic problem. One of these conferences was organized on September 22, 2021, by the editorial board of the Women’s Studies Series of the All-China Women’s Federation Women’s Research Institute. The theme was “Research on Fertility and Parenting in the Context of Low Fertility.”

A speech that attracted attention by media and netizens was given by Zeng Diyang, a lecturer at the School of Public Administration of Nanjing University of Finance and Economics. The title of his speech was “Does 996 affect childbirth? The Effect of Overtime Work on Fertility Intentions and Fertility Behavior.”

Those unfamiliar with the expression “996” should know that it refers to the Chinese habit of working from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., 6 days per week. Of course this is against Chinese law, which mandates a working week of 44 hours and a maximum of 8 working hours per day (except in jails and labor camps, that is). However, young professionals understand that 996 is mandatory for their careers, and companies have promoted it as an ideal. Overworking has never been really incompatible with Communism. The old CCP hands know the name of the mythical Soviet over-worker Alexey Stakhanov, and the Party in China promoted a Chinese version of Stakhanov, Wang Jinxi.

There is one problem with 996, Zeng told the conference, those who work twelve hours per day and should spend another couple of hours to go to work and back have no time, and no energy, to make love. Zeng said that physically men and women working 996 would still be capable of producing children, and perhaps they would even like to, but they just feel too tired to have sexual relationships. And things get even worse when, as it often happens, they are compelled to engage in 996 against their will, and are not paid for it. “Compared with voluntary and paid overtime, involuntary and unpaid overtime had a more significant inhibitory effect on fertility behavior,” Zeng noted.

Many comments may be made about the demographic crisis, Zeng said, but the only way to solve the problem is to fight the 996 culture, and persuade the Chinese that family and children are no less important than work and career. The problem is that the CCP, having created this culture in the first place, is not culturally equipped to change it.