Most Chinese want two kids
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![A nurse examines a pregnant woman in a hospital in Xiangfan, Hubei province, on Friday. [Gong Bo/China Daily]](http://images.china.cn/attachement/jpg/site1007/20100327/0011432100f50d17a1d101.jpg "A nurse examines a pregnant woman in a hospital in Xiangfan, Hubei province, on Friday. [Gong Bo/China Daily]") |
| A nurse examines a pregnant woman in a hospital in Xiangfan, Hubei province, on Friday. [Gong Bo/China Daily] |
Nearly 78 percent of Chinese people want to have two children if the country's family planning policy would permit, according to a recent survey.
About 77.5 percent of those polled said having two children would be "perfect", and the majority of respondents said they want to have children before the age of 30, according to a survey of 6,183 respondents conducted by the social research center of the Beijing-based China Youth Daily.
Only 18.3 percent said they only wanted a single child.
In line with China's family planning policy introduced two decades ago, the one-child rule restricts only 35.9 percent of the population, mostly in large- and medium-sized cities. Urban couples who are both the only children of the family may have two children.
About 56.9 percent of the participants prefer to have children at a relatively early age.
In contrast, 26.7 percent of respondents wanted to postpone having children to the age of 30 or later, so they can give priority to career development or to "enjoy time as a couple first".
"When is it time to have a child? We don't really think about it. We just take it as it comes," said 24-year-old Zhang Huinan, who works for a vehicle detection and test station in Lin'an city of Zhejiang province.
Song Jian, an associate professor in the population development studies center of Renmin University of China, said the best child-bearing age is from 25 to 30. Late childbirths can be harmful to mothers and children's health.
Women should be encouraged to have children at a "proper age" to help improve their well-being, he said.
About 67 percent of those polled in the survey said their economic situation was paramount in deciding to have children.
The survey also showed that 38.1 percent felt it was a "wise choice" to have children during post-graduate studies while 22.7 percent of the respondents said childbearing was actually a distraction and burden for students.
The revised National Regulations for Students of Colleges and Universities in 2007 no longer has any wording prohibiting college students from getting married and having children during their studies.
"Once you start working, you cannot stop. So it is better to have children at an early age," said a first-year graduate student in Beijing surnamed Qin, who is also the mother of a 1-year-old child.
"Some employers are more willing to hire male students. One possible reason is that female university students, especially female graduate students, reach their best reproductive age soon after they are employed. They might get pregnant and then go on maternity leave before their work moves on the right track," Qin said.
However, an adviser for graduates who did not want to be named said that a student on a two or three years' masters program has limited time for study besides writing papers, going on internships and hunting for jobs. Therefore, having a child during college would influence his or her study and career prospects.
The poll showed that for many people born in the 1980s, the responsibility of bringing up children is an important issue.
About 55 percent of those polled said they wanted to let their parents take care of their children, compared with 36.2 percent of respondents who said they wanted to raise their children themselves.
"Don't count on young couples like us to do the child-raising," said Wu Yanqiong, a Shanghai resident in her early 20s, who plans to have a child in the next few years.
Both she and her husband are too busy to take care of children and it is expensive to employ a nanny, she said.
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