Semen donation contest: China's way of dealing with birth rate decline

To deal with its concerning fall in birth rates and declining sperm count in men, China has come up with a unique contest wherein students will be paid for donating their semen.

According to South China Morning Post, Henan Provincial Human Sperm Bank announced on September 10 that it would organise a contest in various universities where the students will be paid cash for donating their semen.

The aim behind this activity is to find a man with highest sperm count and the most vigorous sperm.

Even before this, several sperm banks had offered thousands of yuan to encourage donations for similar competitions in the past.

"Due to environmental pollution and work pressure, the overall sperm quality has deteriorated. This has led to infertility in a number of married couples, bringing disharmony to their families and society. Like blood, sperm donation is a humanitarian activity. It can bring good news to infertile couples. Therefore, we call on university students to donate sperm to make a contribution to society," Henan sperm bank said.

Facing an expectation to donate 8-20 times, the participants of this contest will be given 200 yuan(Rs 2,270.98) each time they donate. Those who reach the maximum 20 donations will be awarded with an additional 6,100 yuan(Rs 69,264.88). In addition to this, their transport and other expenses will also be compensated if they choose to participate.

However, the participant donating their semen must meet the following criteria: They should fall under the age group of 20 to 45 with 1.65 m height. They must not be smokers, alcoholics or drug addicts; they must not have same-sex or promiscuous sexual history. Apart from this, the men must also avoid any sexual activities in the past seven days and should maintain personal hyenine.

There will be certain parameters on the basis of which the semen samples will be evaluated. For example the sperm concentration, volume, motility or the movement of the sperm.

The winners of this competition will be termed as the "nameless heroes" read a report in The Straits Times.

The competition will end with the declaration of two winners in the category of highest sperm count and the most vigorous sperm, respectively.

Participants will also get a fertility assessment when the competition ends.

China was following the one child policy till 2015. The Chinese authorities then allowed couples to have two children, and later three children in 2021 as the population was on a decline. Now, China is trying to influence couples to have kids after the fertility rate in the country dropped to a record low of 1.09 in 2022.

However, the young population in China points at the high expenses of childcare, health, education and gender inequalities as some of the discouraging factors behind child birth.