‘Society doesn’t want my children’: Single Chinese women forced to freeze their eggs abroad

WWhen Yang Li* turned 30, she gave herself three years to decide whether she wanted children. But as the years passed, and she struggled with a busy job in Beijing, Yang felt none the wiser about whether or when she wanted to become a mother. So last year, a month before her 34th birthday, she decided to freeze her eggs.

The problem was that no fertility clinic would help her as a single woman in China. Despite China’s efforts to increase the birth rate, only married couples with fertility problems can use egg freezing services or any form of reproductive technology.

“I talked to a doctor and she told me that in order to freeze my eggs in China, I either need to have a husband or have cancer. And I told her I don’t want either,” Yang recalled.

After researching various options online, Yang travelled to the Czech Republic in September to undergo an egg retrieval and freezing procedure. The entire procedure cost her around 25,000 yuan (£2,660) plus an annual storage fee. She plans to return for another round this year.

Yang is part of a growing generation of educated, urban women who are delaying marriage and motherhood – much to the chagrin of China’s leaders. Last year, China’s birth rate fell to a record low of 6.39 per 1,000 people, shrinking the population by nearly 3 million. Raising China’s birth rate is linked to the goal of national rejuvenation, and China’s president, Xi Jinping, has called on society to “actively cultivate a new culture of marriage and childbearing.”

The practice of “social egg freezing” – aimed at postponing the ability to have a baby until later in life – is seen by China’s leaders as antithetical to such a goal. Lacking access to the services that tens of thousands of women in other countries rely on each year, Chinese women with the means are looking overseas to preserve their hopes of motherhood later in life.

On Chinese social media, and in particular on Xiaohongshu, an app aimed at women with more than 200 million users, young women exchange tips on where to undergo the treatment.

Yang saw positive reviews about the Czech experience on Xiaohongshu when she was researching potential destinations. She ultimately chose the Czech Republic because it was cheaper than going to the US, and because the country allows for frozen eggs to be shipped out of the country later for IVF.

“It was very difficult to get practical information,” said Yang, who used a VPN to bypass Chinese blocks to access the open internet to search on Google and Xiaohongshu. “I have the luxury of being able to afford it financially and also the luxury of my job to be able to travel on vacation, because it’s quite a long period of time …

“So I think I’ve been really lucky, but if you ask me again, I think this has been a very painful process.”

Another woman, 36, recently posted about her experience traveling to Laos to freeze her eggs. “It’s not a small amount of money, but for me it’s to ease my fertility anxiety for the next 10 years.”

Many more Chinese women feel the same way. A study published last year by economists Ren Zeping and Liang Jianzhang found that more than 65 percent of 30- to 34-year-olds hoped to preserve their fertility by freezing their eggs.

But the Chinese government has so far not welcomed the trend. In 2020, the National Health Commission said that allowing single women to freeze their eggs could give women “false hope” and encourage them to postpone motherhood, “which is not conducive to protecting the health of women and offspring.” The topic of relaxing rules around egg freezing is routinely discussed at political gatherings in China, but national policy has so far remained stagnant.

Lijia Zhang, a writer who is working on a book about Chinese women’s changing attitudes toward marriage and motherhood, expects demographic pressures will force Chinese policymakers to ease the restrictions. “It’s only a matter of time before the authorities relax the law,” Zhang said. “Without beating around the bush, most provinces have allowed single women to register their children, and some places even provide maternity benefits.”

For some women, change can’t come soon enough. In 2022, a Chinese court rejected an attempt by Teresa Xu, a single woman, to sue a Beijing hospital that refused to freeze her eggs, claiming the hospital violated her rights. Xu appealed the ruling last year but is still awaiting a verdict.

For Yang, such barriers reflect a societal attitude that educated, older women should not have children, despite the low birth rate. “My theory is that society doesn’t really want my children. They don’t want children to be raised by self-reflective parents like me.”

*Name has been changed

Additional research by Chi Hui Lin

• Watch The Guardian documentary Frozen in Time, in which single women Lei and Abu are denied egg freezing in China. Instead, they travel to the US to fulfil their dream of motherhood.