Sawt Falasteen - 'Not about condoms': Chinese shrug off contraceptive tax

Consumers must now pay a 13 percent value-added tax for contraception including condoms, after Beijing removed exemptions on the products from January 1.

Childcare and marriage brokerage services are exempt.

The government has sought to boost China's flagging birth rate, concerned about the rapidly ageing and shrinking population, as well as record low marriage rates.

But young people in Beijing told AFP that taxing contraceptives will not address the root issues they say are stopping people from having children.

"The immense pressure on young people in China today -- from employment to daily life -- has absolutely nothing to do with condoms," a resident in her thirties, who wanted to be known only as Jessica, told AFP.

Jessica said there was a notable class divide in Chinese society and many people felt their future was too uncertain to start a family.

"The rich are too rich, and the poor remain poor... (and people) lack confidence in their future, so they may be unwilling to have children."

Xu Wanting, 33, who read about the new tax online, said she did not believe it would directly increase birth rates.

"Those who truly need to buy these products will still buy them, because these are family planning products," Xu told AFP outside a shopping mall.

"They (condoms) are not solely for contraception, but also concern women's reproductive health."

- Concrete obstacles -

China's population has declined for three straight years, and could fall from 1.4 billion today to 633 million by 2100, according to United Nations predictions.

China's leaders, including President Xi Jinping, have pledged to address the country's demographic problems.

They vowed at a key economic policy meeting in December to "advocate positive views on marriage and childbearing, and strive to stabilise the number of new births" in 2026, according to state broadcaster CCTV.

But the contraceptives tax is trivial compared to the true cost of raising a child in China, one of the world's most expensive countries for child-rearing, said Alfred Wu, associate professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in Singapore.

"Young couples deciding whether to have children are not calculating whether they can afford extra dollars for contraception -- they are asking whether they can afford to raise a child at all in an environment of economic uncertainty," Wu told AFP.

They face concrete obstacles in China, Wu added, such as a weak job market, "prohibitive" housing costs, a stressful work culture and workplace discrimination against women.

A 19-year-old student surnamed Du told AFP in Beijing she felt the impact of more expensive contraceptives would be limited.

To really boost births, small companies have to guarantee benefits like marriage and maternity leave first, Du said.

Otherwise, it may be hard to convince couples to have children.

"Young people today... worry about whether they can shoulder the responsibilities of being parents," she said.

R.AbuNasser--SF-PST