Why China’s motherhood question looms over the country’s long-term future

By refusing to countenance motherhood, Beijing-based secretary Zhang Hanjing – along with hundreds of thousands of women also of childbearing age – is giving Chinese authorities a headache.

Zhang, who says she is also unwilling to marry, is in perfect health and financially capable of raising a child, but watching her friends go through the experience in recent years – some with their second or third children – has only deterred her.