A man once complained that he and his wife were constantly fighting because she refused to have a second child. In his view, other women were willing to do it, so why couldn’t she? The argument over childbirth had escalated to the point of divorce.

The problem is that many people still talk about having children as if it were a simple family decision, when in reality it looks much more like entering a high-risk partnership.

If two people were evaluating it as a joint project, the imbalance would be obvious. In the pregnancy itself, a man’s physical involvement is tiny, while the woman carries almost all of the bodily burden and risk for ten months. After the child is born, the family name and social recognition often still lean toward the father, yet the long-term daily labor of raising the child falls overwhelmingly on the mother. On top of that, having children frequently interrupts a woman’s career, and can even push her professional life backward.

And this is not a partnership with guaranteed returns. There is always the possibility that the relationship itself fails. Divorce rates are already high, often discussed in the 40% to 50% range. If the marriage ends, what exactly does the woman recover after taking on the pregnancy, childbirth, career sacrifice, and years of caregiving? There are no clear terms that compensate for those losses. Child support may amount to only 1,000 to 2,000 yuan a month. If the home was bought by the husband before marriage, it may remain his personal property. As for how much a woman ultimately receives, that can depend heavily on the other person’s character, and in some cases she may get very little.

Any rational partner would hesitate before signing onto a project like that, especially one that requires major time, money, physical cost, and emotional labor, while offering uncertain returns and assigning most of the risk to one side.

And unlike a business deal, this arrangement often comes with irreversible changes to the woman’s body.

That is why the question is not simply, “Why don’t women want children anymore?” A more honest question is: under these conditions, why would they?

Men often find it easier to say they want children because they do not have to be the ones who get pregnant or give birth. If a man earns 8,000 yuan a month, having another child does not suddenly double his salary to 16,000. The same income now has to support two children instead of one. When the wife says the money is not enough, the response she may hear is, “If it’s not enough, why don’t you spend less?”

For women, the calculation looks very different. Childbirth can change the body, bring weight gain, skin problems, anxiety after birth, and serious career disruption. Many women are expected to keep working while also caring for the child. Some end up becoming full-time homemakers. And even then, they may still be told, “Other women can earn money while raising kids, so why can’t you?”

Meanwhile, many men remain detached from the actual work. They carry the title of “father,” but not the bulk of the responsibility. In too many households, people still assume that having children is a woman’s job, raising them is a woman’s job, housework is a woman’s job, and paid work is also still a woman’s job.

Then comes the practical question after the baby is born: who will take care of the child? If the paternal grandparents help, there may be tension between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law. If the woman’s own mother helps, the woman may feel guilty for exhausting her or letting her suffer. In the end, the responsibility often circles back to the woman herself, inside and outside the home.

So when someone asks, “I want a second child, but my wife disagrees—what should I do?” the answer is not persuasion.

First change the reality behind childbirth and parenting. Let it stop being treated as a woman’s responsibility alone. Let men take on far more of the family burden. Let there be real financial capacity to support another child. Only then does it make sense to ask women to consider having one.