Young Women’s Fertility Intentions and the Emerging Bilateral Family System under China’s Two-Child Family Planning Policy*

China’s total fertility rate (TFR) has been below replacement level since the 1990s and below 1.5 since the 2000s. To address the issue of low fertility and rapid aging, the Chinese government replaced the strict one-child family planning policy with the selective two-child family planning policy in 2013 and then the comprehensive two-child family planning policy in 2015. However, a strong baby boom did not ensue, and births hit a record low in 2018. It is thus vital to understand fertility motivation among younger generations of women. Collecting qualitative data in a small city in the Yangtze Delta, we found that the high costs of current practices of child raising and education are prominent factors in women’s mind-sets, and that bilateral family support, including but not limited to help with finances and care, is the cornerstone of this expensive, modern child raising model. A complex, bilateral family model has gradually grown out of the patriarchal system. Grandparents on both sides collaborate with the mother at different times of the day and in different stages of children’s development. A familial relay race of child care reduces the mother’s work-family conflicts. The sustainability of mosaic familism, the gendered intergenerational collaboration following bilateral family lines, is questionable, particularly when raising children comes into conflict with caring for the elderly. We suggest that future policies pay sufficient attention to the needs of women who are embedded in the bilateral extended family.