Xi JinpingChina’s strict zero-COVID policy has prompted many Chinese women to change family planning or give birth to babies outside of China.

What happened: A 30-year-old Chinese man Claire Jiang said she no longer wants to have babies in China after previously witnessing an extraordinary exercise of power during a strict lockdown in Shanghai, according to Reuters report.

“I definitely don’t want my children to have to endure the uncertainty of living in a country where the government can just come to your house and do whatever they want,” Jiang said.

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The report noted that pandemics and economic uncertainty have weighed on fertility rates worldwide in the past. But demographers say Xi’s zero-COVID-19 policy of tight controls on people’s lives may have profoundly damaged their desire to have children.

“China’s zero-COVID policy has resulted in zero economy, zero marriages, zero fertility,” said a prominent Chinese demographer Yi Fuxian said the publication.

Now a separate one United Nations China report says COVID-19 pandemic has had long-term impact on first births. People have been found to have postponed having babies due to financial insecurity, unfounded worries about the vaccines affecting fetuses, and having severe restrictions on caring for an infant.

“Couples who may have been contemplating having a child next year have definitely put it off. Couples who really weren’t sure have postponed indefinitely,” she said Justine Coulsonthe representative of the UN Population Fund in China.

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