Work-life balance/economics is usually the biggest problem. When everyone is slaving to afford an apartment and a good education for their child, don't expect them to go for a second and a third child
Social engineering should also be on the cards after the work-life balance/economic aspect has been addressed.
For TFR to reach replacement level, you'd have to factor in additional negative factors:
- People who choose or are forced to be single (~15% of China's population)
- People who suffer from primary or secondary infertility (~25% of China's population)
- Married people who choose, as a life style, to never have children (unknown, but probably significant)
The married, reproductive couples would have to have ~3-4 children on average to make up for the above. That is certainly not possible given current economic burdens facing the average Chinese family. Even if the government were to step in with subsidies and work-life balance support, it'd be a difficult hill to climb and would put these people way behind their low/no children peers. It'd drastically lower their standard of living, also, given the typical apartment size in China.
The biggest contributor to low fertility is actually very simple, and it applies to the entire world - female education & participation in the labor force. If women are encouraged or expected to work, they have less children. Period. There's no getting around this dynamic.
What makes it worse for East Asia, however, is that traditional family values have been destroyed by capitalist excess. Female labor participation rates aren't that different between the US and China, and legally speaking, pregnancy benefits in China are probably actually better than those in the US. But women in the US are much more willing to have children, for these reasons: 1) more space/larger housing, 2) strong family values in South and Central US and 3) immigrants, though this isn't as important as one might think when looking at the charts - state-level differences are larger, and white families in more conservative regions of the US are highly fertile, compared to China, South Korea, Japan, etc.
East Asian culture, in my view, has gone down the wrong path in regards to competing over "life style quality," where people pride themselves over how much they
have, rather than how much they
create. Obviously, if you don't have children, you'll
have more - money, career, vacations, luxury products, etc. That's what young East Asian people care about, these days, and it's taking a huge toll on their desire to sacrifice for children.
Where did this culture come from? It isn't East Asian traditions, but rather an extreme variation of Western - or more precisely, American - consumerist culture. Take the worst of Western consumerism & individualism, mix it with East Asian class/prestige obsession, add a bit of radical feminism, and you have the toxic mixture of modern East Asian culture that is destroying its demographics and with it, its future.
The only way out is to change that culture entirely, through a mix of stick (punish those who indulge in it) and carrot (reward those who resist it). Social engineering is far from easy, and Japan & South Korea have already failed. Yet, it is necessary. Even if it's too late for short-term improvements, it is still important in the long-term to get over this toxic hyper individualism for future generations.
Fortunately, nature will lend a hand, here - the fact that those who indulge in hyper individualism will NOT reproduce will ultimately reduce their numbers and thus their influence among the population. But nature alone cannot triumph, not when it's gotten this bad already. It'll take an all of society effort to correct the course.
