Currently DINK families quietly adopt traditional lifestyles. "DINK" became popular in China in the 1980s, and was quickly adopted by many fashionable young people. But now, twenty years later, most Chinese youths are reluctant to form a DINK family.
Mr. and Mrs. Wang, both above 30, are teachers of a college in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province. The couple once was strong advocates of DINK family. But as they often saw a child playing with his parents happily in Hangzhou Children's Park, they gradually changed their minds. Mrs. Wang said she hoped to have her own child after she saw such lovely kids cheerfully playing with their parents from time to time. "A woman needs to be a mother, which will make her life perfect," she said. They finally decided to give up their current DINK life and are preparing to have babies.
Many scholars in Hangzhou consider such phenomenon as "neo-traditionalism," as more and more couples choose to have traditional family structures.
Hospitals in Hangzhou also revealed that the numbers of expectant mothers above 30 had kept increasing in recent years. Zhejiang People's Hospital estimated that 40 out of 700 pregnant women in their delivery rooms were above 35. Some doctors said, major hospitals like Hangzhou First Hospital had often received such pregnant women.
Most couples have carefully thought it over before choosing DINK as their family forms. They believe now the social circumstances have changed. Mrs. He, a pregnant woman, said, when her career was stable, she needed a child to keep her family stable.
(chinanews.cn September 19, 2006)
