Fertility anxiety vs. anti-fertility anxiety: exploring Chinese women's conflicting attitudes toward childbearing through social media.

ABSTRACT:

Introduction

Amid a global decline in fertility rates, China's consistently low birth rate has highlighted the importance of understanding the fertility attitudes of women of childbearing age. While previous studies have largely focused on fertility anxiety, less attention has been paid to anti-fertility anxiety-women's psychological resistance to societal pressures and expectations surrounding childbearing. To address this research gap, this study explores how women construct and articulate these seemingly conflicting attitudes, as well as the sociopsychological mechanisms that enable their coexistence.

Methods

Using grounded theory and natural language processing techniques, the study analyzed 4,495 Weibo posts (fertility anxiety = 2,761; anti-fertility anxiety = 1,734) th

SUBMITTER: Li W 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12488452 | biostudies-literature | 2025

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature