Beijing’s efforts to reinvigorate China’s birth rate, one of the lowest in the world, face a serious obstacle as semen quality plummets among young male donors, research suggests.
Last year fewer than a fifth of young men who donated sperm in the inland province of Hunan had sufficiently healthy semen to qualify as a donor, according to a 15-year study of more than 30,000 applicants. In 2001 more than half qualified.
Local media reports indicate Hunan is not the only province suffering a shortage in qualified donors. State broadcaster China Radio International recently reported that a sperm bank in Henan province had dropped minimum height and education requirements for donors and was offering to store their semen free of charge for three decades in an effort to make up its own deficit.