China’s push for more babies

A woman and a child pass a 20-foot-wide stone propaganda slab engraved with illustrations depicting foetuses in each month of pregnancy, at a park in Miyun, a district in Beijing. The Chinese government is again trying to insert itself into women’s childbearing decisions, knocking on doors and making calls with questions that some find downright invasive. — ©2024 The New York Times Company

THE first time a government worker encouraged Yumi Yang to have a baby, she thought little of it.

She and her husband were registering their marriage at a local office in northeastern China, and the worker gave them free prenatal vitamins, which she chalked up to the government trying to be helpful.