What aspects of traditional Chinese culture have an impact on population

From the perspective of traditional Chinese culture, the idea of "passing on the family name to the next generation" is y rooted, and it is still an important reason why Chinese people want to have more children, especially more boys.

The idea of "passing on the family name" and the strong preference for boys have deep and complex social roots. For thousands of years, China has been a traditional agricultural society, and from a national or macro perspective, the male population is the main source of a country's labor force, that is, the main source of labor service, military service, and tax revenue; it is the source of wealth, just like land. Therefore, successive Chinese regimes have consistently encouraged people to have more boys in order to strengthen the country's power. From the perspective of a family, i.e., from the micro viewpoint, the continuation of the life of a family is, of course, first of all, the continuation of direct blood relations, but as an economic entity, the key lies in the continuation of its property inheritance rights. In the traditional agrarian society of "father produces, son inherits", the continuation of the family and its inheritance right must have a male heir; if a family has no male heir, it means that its life is bound to come to an end. Therefore, every family must take the birth of a male heir as a top priority.

We believe, however, that it is incomplete and insufficient to analyze the root causes of the idea of "succession" only from the economic point of view. Because it is not difficult to see that although the nature of state power has completely changed, the national economy is no longer dominated by traditional agriculture, and the peasant family economy is permeated by modern industrial and commercial factors. However, the idea of "passing on the family name to the next generation" still persists in the minds of the Chinese people. This reminds us that we must broaden our horizons and further search for its roots in traditional Chinese culture. It can be argued that the fertility cult in traditional Chinese culture is one of the main roots of the idea of "passing the baton to the next generation".