China used to fine couples for having too many babies. Now it can’t pay them enough

Zane Li was nine years old when he got a baby sister – and her arrival plunged the family in a small city in eastern China into crippling debt. Under China’s stringent one-child policy at the time, Li’s parents were fined 100,000 yuan (about $13,900) for having a second child – nearly three times their annual income from selling fish at the local market.“We were barely able to survive,” Li