The bright lights and fast living of China’s richest city have taken a heavy toll on the local sperm count, a newspaper said on Monday.
Shanghai’s sperm bank had managed to collect just 6,000 samples in two years and many of those were of “poor quality,” the Shanghai Daily said.
“More than 2,000 people came here for physical checks and only 400 were found to be qualified” to donate sperm, the newspaper quoted the sperm bank director, Li Zheng, as saying.
Unhealthy lifestyles, emotional stress and environmental pollution were to blame for deteriorating quality, it added.
Shanghai, trying to reverse more than a decade of slowing population growth, abolished rewards last September for married couples who decide not to have children.
Almost a 10th of married couples in Shanghai were believed to be infertile, and about 10 percent of those turned to a sperm bank for help, it added.
China imposes strict family planning rules that typically allow couples to have just one child. But those have eased over the years as it faces an estimated $300 billion shortfall in its pension system while its populace rapidly ages.
