Chinese sperm banks are appealing varsity students to donate, here’s why

In a new way to earn money, Chinese university students can now donate sperm and contribute to countering China’s falling fertility rate, reported Global Times on Friday.

The latest report arrived as various sperm donation clinics across China, including in Beijing and Shanghai, have recently appealed to university students to donate sperm.

The latest trending topic on China’s Twitter-like Weibo has gained momentum with several clinics appealing to donate sperm and it has been viewed over 240 million times this week.

The first one to appeal to university students for sperm donation was the Yunnan Human Sperm Bank in southwest China on 2 February. Its announcement introduced the benefits, registration conditions, subsidies and sperm donation procedures. Following this, other sperm banks in other provinces and cities across China followed the suit.

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“Sperm banks in other places, including northwest China's Shaanxi (province), have published similar appeals. The public was intrigued and discussion became heated partly because the appeals were made after China's population recorded a decrease in 2022, the first decline in six decades,” Hindustan Times quoted the Global Times report as saying. 

As per Yunnan's sperm bank, donors should be aged between 20 and 40, taller than 165 cm, have no infectious or genetic diseases, and should hold or be pursuing a degree.

“The donor needs to go through a health check and those who qualify will make 8-12 donations, with a subsidy payment of 4,500 yuan ($664),” the GT report said.

When it comes to finance, Shaanxi sperm bank wanted donors to be at least 168 cm and said the subsidy for a complete donation would be 5,000 yuan ($734), while a Shanghai sperm bank offered the highest subsidy of 7,000 yuan ($1000).

According to National Bureau of Statistics of China (NBS)'s January data, China’s population recorded negative growth for the first time in 61 years, decreasing by 850,000 in 2022.

The number of newborns on the mainland has been dropping for five consecutive years since 2017, after the figure reached 18.83 million in 2016, the official news agency Xinhua had reported.

In 2015, China scrapped its decades-long one-child policy and allowed couples to have two children, and followed it up In 2021 by allowing couples to have a third child.