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Justin Jin

The rising cost of child-rearing has led newlyweds Shi Lin and Guo Huanhuan, who live in Chongqing, to plan on having just one child, or perhaps none. Raising children, Guo thinks, is too demanding. “I want to give my child the best,” she says, “but I also want to have my own life and not be tied to childcare.”

In a vivid display of how gender roles are shifting in urban areas, women at a Shanghai karaoke bar enjoy the company of Liu Yujia, a male escort hired for their night out. Young professional women in China are increasingly choosing their careers and social lives over settling down to marry and have children.

Wan Liping (center), a retired doctor, practices with other older women in Nanjing for a show billed as Beautiful Mother Fashion Week. The women say they had little opportunity to express themselves or celebrate their beauty growing up in a more tradition-bound China.

Former concert violinist Song Xinxia teaches children in Shanghai. Well-off Chinese parents with only one child often pay for extracurricular activities to ensure future success for their son or daughter, adding to the expense of raising a child in today’s China.

Yi Dingrong (at left) and her husband, Zhao Bo, visit a historic area of Shanghai called the Bund with their children: 16-year-old Yanxi, three-year-old Shurui, and two-year-old Yikun. The couple, who own a Chinese medicine business, are among the few city dwellers affluent enough to have a large family. They had their first baby when the one-child policy was in effect. Once China scrapped it, they had two more. Yi finds having three children fulfilling. “There’s more energy, more self-disciplined learning,” she says.

At the after-school center she founded in Shexian in Anhui Province, Mei Shuyun teaches children to write Chinese characters. Eight-year-old Jin Zixuan’s parents both have jobs and aren’t able to watch her during the workday.

Tian Siguo, 80, and his wife, Hu Zhongzi, 77, tend a plot on the outskirts of Chongqing. In exchange for an apartment in a new high-rise, millions of farmers like them have surrendered their ancestral lands. The Chinese government is rapidly developing farmland on the edge of cities.

Li Guangyu and Pixie Lim take their dogs for a swim at a pet activity center in Shanghai. Li has a dog and three cats. He doesn’t want the responsibility of caring for children but dotes on his pets. “I am their father,” Li says. “I’m ready to sacrifice for them and give them time.”

Five-year-old Kong Niling visits her great-grandfather Lu Jinfu and great-grandmother Zhou Yafen in Shanghai. The couple had three children who each had one child in accordance with the one-child policy, but Niling is their only great-grandchild.

Chongqing, a sprawling industrial city in southwestern China, grew rapidly for many decades, spawning a still vibrant tradition of eating hot pot in crowded outdoor venues. The dense urban area’s population is estimated to be more than 17 million. As the region developed, subways were built above- and belowground to ease congestion.