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Why are women in China not having more babies?

Mar 17, 2023
In China, each woman went from having about three children in the late 1970s to now one. Decades later, the Chinese government wants women to have three children again but is meeting resistance.
A woman holding a baby girl lines up for a PCR COVID test in Shanghai in 2022. Birth rates continued to fall during China's strict zero-COVID policy during the pandemic.
Charles Zhang/Marketplace

Some struggle economically as China's 20th Communist Party Congress begins

Oct 14, 2022
Under President Xi Jinping, tech and real estate oversight has tightened, while the private tutoring sector has been flattened.
A sign celebrating the Chinese Communist Party's 100th anniversary sits prominently in a commercial center in Shanghai in 2021.
Charles Zhang/Marketplace

In China, it’s heads for a real estate win, or "rotten tails" — you lose

May 10, 2021
Owning property (or not) can determine your future in China. But it’s a gamble that doesn’t always pay off for those who have invested their life savings.
Last year, musician Chen Peng took Marketplace to the development in Zhengzhou where he bought a two-bedroom condo. The development remains unfinished today.
Charles Zhang/Marketplace

The changing tastes of China's consumer class

Oct 20, 2015
Chinese consumers are looking beyond KFC and Pizza Hut for dining experiences.

Fathering seven children in a one-child society: Famous director's kids spark big debate in China

May 13, 2013
China's most celebrated movie director and choreographer of the 2008 Beijing Olympics opening ceremony, Zhang Yimou faces $26 million in fines after state media reported he has fathered at least seven children with up to four women. The scandal has sparked a debate about the inequities between China's rich and poor.

Adult accessories on the Street of Eternal Happiness

Nov 30, 2012
Amid the street's noodle stands, one store dispenses sex aids and advice for shoppers in this conservative culture.

The end of the Great Migration: China's workers return home

Oct 3, 2012
Twenty years after the start of China's great migration of farmers leaving rural China to work at factories along the country's coast, workers are beginning to return home, following an investment boom in China's interior.

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Homeless in New York: A Chinese Student's Story of Life After the Agency

Nov 2, 2011
While reporting my story on Chinese college placement agencies, I interviewed a young man named Jason who is attending a university in New York. ...

Chinese citizens on the economic problems of the West

Oct 13, 2011
Bai Feifei, financial manager at Standard Chartered Bank, 36 years old. Why do you think the economies of the U.S. and EU aren't doing so well? ...

China's Rocket Launches to the Tune of "America the Beautiful"

Sep 30, 2011
Photo: AFP/Getty It's been a tough week for China's government. First, you had a terrible subway crash in Shanghai that injure...