Society

Chinese DINK families not regret their decision

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2010-08-01 10:58

BEIJING - Most Chinese DINK (Dual Income, No Kids) families don't regret their decision to live without children, according to an on-line report.

"I'm living to be a DINK and I will never regret it. It's important to live the life of a wonderful couple, neither too long nor too short," said an Internet user, "Yu Guanxi", cited in a research jointly conducted by jingtime.com, and tieba.baidu.com of China's largest Internet search engine.

Related readings:  Dink family booming in Beijing

"I have no plans to have kids, or to get married," said "Xiaolongbao," adding that "I have great expectation for my life. Kids are too much for me and I can't balance my career and the family well."

DINK families refer to couples, who are able to bear a child but choose to live with no kids, Hao Maishou, a research fellow of the Tianjin Academy of Social Sciences, said.

DINK families are often found in economically booming cities. Most such couples are well-educated, boast of high incomes and enjoy traveling.

About the reasons why there are more DINK families, Hao said, young couples hope to get rid of such conventional thoughts that parents raised children for the family line. They also tend to lead a high quality life, lightheartedly, "in a world of only two."

Knowing the pain of delivering a child, some young women reach a consensus with their boyfriends prior to the marriage that they would be DINK families.

The topic sparked a heated debate online.

The pros say that the traditional norms to raise children for old-age should be discarded, and that being DINK could help in maintaining a life of high quality.

The cons say that life without a child is "incomplete."

Neutral people say that they respect these couples' own choices.

However, some DINK families change their mind in their late 30s or early 40s and want a child, which spurs a birth boom amongst middle-aged women in China.

Chen Jialing, 41, who became pregnant recently, said, "Only after my husband and I became 40, did we realize that something was missing in our life; so we decided to have a child."