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China has stepped up a nationwide campaign to persuade singles to date, marry and have children as Beijing faces a deepening demographic crisis.

Local governments cold-call married women to ask about their plans to have children and give money to parents to encourage them to have more than one child.

Universities have been asked to introduce so-called love courses for single students, and regular articles appear in the state media about the benefits of childbirth.

China’s population is shrinking, with more deaths than birthswhich puts pressure on local governments to address the increasingly bleak demographic outlook.

“ChinaThe population is facing three major trends: aging, low birth rate and low marriage rate,” said prominent economist Ren Zeping in an interview with the domestic press last month. “There are fewer children. and more elderly people. The speed and scale of aging in China is unprecedented.”

Beijing has promised to offer subsidies and bigger tax cuts for parents to reduce the cost of raising children. The State Council, China’s cabinet, said in October that it was drafting a plan to establish a “friendly social welfare system” as part of a broader stimulus package to address a ailing economy. The details of this plan are still being leaked.

Meanwhile, married women in their 20s and early 30s across the country are getting calls from local officials asking about their plans to start a family, according to several people who spoke to Financial Times and social media posts.

In some cases, the callers asked the women to attend prenatal body checks. Some callers are more direct, offering subsidies to women who have more than one child. Couples need to have an average of 2.1 children to reach the population replacement rate.

A Zhejiang resident who declined to be named said officials offered local women a Rmb100,000 ($14,000) subsidy for having a second child. “There is no clear policy, but if you ask for it, the village will find you a way to get the subsidy,” he said. Currently, subsidies for children are determined by local governments depending on their financial health.

Personalized lobbying comes against a background of a intensified media campaign praise the benefits of childbirth. In recent months, the state-run People’s Daily and Life Times have highlighted scientific voices that say childbirth is good for the mother’s health and even helps prevent cancer and treat some diseases. .

A publication run by the state’s National Health Commission in December called on universities to establish “marriage and love education courses” to encourage students to marry.

“Universities are an important place for college students to fall in love,” it wrote, citing a survey in which 57 percent of students said they did not want to enter into a relationship because of their heavy work.

The article suggests that universities introduce courses in the theory of love and real-life case analysis to develop a “systematic knowledge of love and marriage”.

However, experts doubt that the official measures to stabilize the birth rate will attract young people to start families, especially if the increase in unemployment and the strong economic growth prevent the spending.

Wang Feng, an expert on Chinese demographics at the University of California, Irvine, said officials are resorting to the same “playbook of using administrative power to achieve demographic goals” seen during the one child policy, the 35 years from 1980 when families were prohibited from having one child.

While Beijing has successfully stopped couples from having large families, it is more difficult to use administrative powers to achieve the opposite result, he said. “Such old wine in a new bottle is not effective, because the reason behind late marriage and low fertility is very different.”

Shen Yang, a feminist writer, said that people “can see through propaganda”.

“If the government wants to strengthen the birth rate, it should create a more friendly environment for parents, especially single mothers,” he said.

While Beijing encourages childbirth, there are no signs that it has limited access to birth control or abortion. Although there are specific instances of doctors refusing to perform procedures, this often reflects concern about legal action from family members, said a gynecologist in Beijing.

However, Wang said the authorities have an uphill battle to convince “young women and men today, who belong to the most educated generation in Chinese history” to have children.

“For young women in particular, they not only face high living costs but also severe career penalties if they leave their job position to have children.”