A LACK of family support and a decrease in career prospects are the top reasons why Chinese women hold back from having a second child, the China Daily reported yesterday.

Data collected via social media giant Sina Weibo showed that Internet users’ discussions about having a second child shifted from concerns over economic costs to mothers’ worries of not having enough support from their husbands and damage to their careers, the newspaper said.

Analyses of posts from 2013 found that Internet users posted a lot about the economic costs of having a second child, such as bigger apartments and education expenses.

In 2018, however, worries about children’s health and whether mothers receive sufficient support from their husbands became major factors in deciding whether to have a second child.

The survey, conducted by the Center for Communication and State Governance Research and the Center for Social Governance Research at Fudan University, was based on 275 million randomly collected posts.

China allowed married couples to have up to two children in 2016, ending its decades-long one-child policy.

China reported 15.23 million new births last year, compared with 17.23 million in 2017 and 17.86 million in 2016, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. Of the new births, more than half were second children. (Xinhua)