In the years since China started actively encouraging couples to have more children, birth numbers have continued to drop. In one response, authorities across China are starting to make it less of an obstacle course for unmarried women to have children. … Giving single mothers birth benefits is one area where the interests of the state and women happen to merge, said Wang Feng, a sociology professor at the University of California, Irvine. “The deeper issue here, beyond fertility, is that China’s young women are trying to push boundaries to protect and expand personal rights,” Prof. Wang said. 

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