Ozmond Here, BBC Business
Yan Chen, BBC News in Chinese
Since January 1, Chinese people have been paying a 13 percent sales tax on contraceptives, while childcare services are tax-free, as the world's second-largest economy tries to boost the birth rate.
The tax reform, announced at the end of 2024, will eliminate many tax breaks that have been in place since 1994, when China was still implementing its decades-long one-child policy.
At the same time, services related to weddings and care for the elderly, as well as extended parental leave and financial assistance, are exempt from value added tax (VAT).
As the country faces an aging population and slowing economic growth, Beijing is making intensive efforts to encourage young Chinese to get married and couples to have children.
Official data shows that China's population has been shrinking for the third year in a row, with only 9,54 million babies born in 2024.
That's about half the number 10 years ago, when China began easing restrictions on the number of children per family.
However, the introduction of a tax on contraceptives, which applies to condoms, contraceptive pills, pads and implants, has raised concerns about a possible increase in unwanted pregnancies and HIV infections, but also ridicule.
Some emphasize that it takes much more than expensive condoms to encourage people to have children.
As a vendor urged shoppers to stock up before the price increase, one social media user joked: "Now I'm going to buy condoms for the rest of my life."
Another wrote that people are very aware of the difference in the price of condoms and the cost of raising a child.
China is one of the most expensive countries in the world to raise a child, according to a 2024 report by the Beijing-based JuVa Population Research Institute.
Costs are further increased by high tuition fees in a highly competitive education system, as well as the difficulties women face in balancing career and parenthood, the study said.
Due to the slowdown in economic growth, partly caused by the housing market crisis, families, especially young people, have become uncertain about their future.
"I have one child and I don't want more," says Daniel Luo, 36, who lives in the eastern province of Henan.
"It's like when the subway ticket gets more expensive."
"If the price goes up by a yuan or two, people who ride the subway don't change their habits."
"You still have to take the subway, right?"
He says he's not worried about the increase in the price of condoms.
"A box of condoms might cost five yuan more, maybe 10, and in the worst case, 20."
"On an annual basis, it's only a few hundred yuan and is completely affordable."
However, this additional cost could be a problem for some, and that's exactly what worries Rosie Zhao, who lives in the city of Xi'an in central China.
He says that the increase in the price of contraceptives, which are a basic necessity, can lead students and financially vulnerable people to engage in "risky" sexual relations.
That, he says, would be "the most dangerous possible outcome of this policy."
Analysts are divided over the real goal of tax reform.
The idea that increasing taxes on condoms will increase the birth rate is an "exaggerated" expectation, says demographer Yi Fuxian of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, in the United States (US).
He believes that Beijing primarily wants to collect as much tax revenue as possible at a time when the country is facing a falling real estate market and growing public debt.
VAT revenues amounted to almost $1 billion last year and accounted for close to 40 percent of China's total tax revenue.
The introduction of the condom tax has primarily "symbolic significance" and reflects Beijing's efforts to encourage growth in China's "staggeringly low" fertility rate, said Henrietta Levin of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).
He explains that this plan will be made more difficult by the fact that already overburdened provincial governments will have to implement many of these measures and pay out incentives, and it is not clear whether they can even allocate enough funds for this.
Levin also warns that China's approach to encouraging births could easily backfire if people get the impression that the state is interfering too much in decisions that are deeply personal.
Recently, media reports have emerged that officials in some provinces have been calling women and questioning them about their menstrual cycles and childbearing plans.
The Yunnan Provincial Health Bureau said the data was needed to determine the number of pregnant women.
However, as Levin points out, this practice does not contribute at all to the image of the government.
“The [Communist] Party simply cannot refrain from interfering in every decision that is important to it.
"So, in a sense, she becomes her own worst enemy."
Experts, as well as women themselves, believe that the male-dominated political leadership does not understand the social changes driving these trends, which are not unique to China.
Western countries, as well as countries in the region, such as South Korea and Japan, have been trying to increase birth rates for years due to an aging population.
One reason is the burden of childcare, which, according to research, is disproportionately borne by women.
However, other changes are also being observed, such as a decline in the number of marriages and even a reduced interest in dating.
China's measures have not taken into account the main problem - the way young people communicate today, which increasingly avoids genuine human connections, says Luo from Henan province.
He points to the growth in sales of sex toys in China, which he says is a sign that "people are increasingly satisfying themselves" because "interacting with others has become an additional burden."
He says it's easier and more comfortable to be online because of the pressures of the real world.
"Young people today suffer much more social pressure than they did 20 years ago."
"Of course, they live better materially, but the expectations of them are far higher."
"Everyone is just exhausted."
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