Shorthand for gainfully employed U.S. couples whose only responsibilities were to themselves, the acronym DINK — dual income, no kids — was coined to capture the unabashed materialism of the 1980s.
Four decades later, the term has resurfaced, with millennials embracing it on social media to showcase their free time, extravagant spending habits, and other benefits of choosing not to have children. It has gained popularity beyond the United States, including in one country where such a lifestyle would have been hard to imagine just a decade ago: China
China once famously restricted couples to one child each to manage population growth. This policy resulted in a shortage of young people. In 2016, the government increased the limit to two children, and in 2021, it further relaxed it to three. However, amidst deep economic uncertainty, a growing number of Chinese are opting for a different number: zero.
Many proudly refer to themselves as DINKs, using the English acronym or the Mandarin phonetic translation, "dingke."
Xu Kaikai, 29, said being DINKs gives her and her 36-year-old boyfriend a greater sense of control over their lives. "It reduces some of the anxieties about age," she said.
Xu works in advertising in Shanghai, where her boyfriend is a project manager for a construction company. "I used to talk about having a beautiful baby," Xu said. Now she calls herself a "drifting leaf" and gets so bored with people talking about children on social media that she follows only people without them.
A recent study from the Luoyang Institute of Science and Technology estimated that DINKs accounted for about 38% of Chinese households in 2020, up from 28% a decade earlier. However, these figures included a large number of people living alone, and the research did not specifically examine whether couples were indeed dual-income.
Not all Chinese adhere strictly to a particular definition of the acronym. Some include anybody without children, while others do not count people who still have a chance to change their minds — women of childbearing age or men without vasectomies.
The exact number of DINKs in the United States is also unclear. A Pew Research survey in 2021 found that 44% of couples aged 18 to 49 said it was unlikely they would have children, up from 37% in 2018.
The term DINK is not entirely new in China, but previously, it usually indicated couples who wanted children but could not have them, rather than the childless-by-choice ethos embraced by couples today.
"It was just a high-class phenomenon," said Yuying Tong, a professor of sociology at the Chinese University of Hong Kong who studies family life. She noted that the number of DINKs is increasing, largely because more people are delaying marriage.
This rejection of societal norms comes at a challenging time for the Communist Party, which is grappling with a demographic crisis due to insufficient young people to support the elderly. China's population declined for the second year in a row in 2023, and the birthrate fell to a record low.
To encourage childbearing, the Chinese government is offering subsidies and matchmaking services. It has also tried to dissuade DINKs by promoting articles about DINK couples who regret not having children due to loneliness, marital strife, or inheritance issues.
Despite these efforts, many DINKs remain steadfast in their choice. Hu Huiwen, a 38-year-old financial consultant in Hangzhou, has heard warnings about her decision not to have children, but in the five years since she made that choice, she has not regretted it.
She belongs to group chats for DINKs, where participants advise one another on how to spend their leisure time. Such portrayals of child-free life pose a challenge to the government's campaign for childbearing.
A recent study found that the average cost of raising a child in China was significant, making marriage and childbearing financially daunting for many. As a result, more individuals, like Zheng Yu, a 47-year-old fashion consultant in Shanghai, are choosing not to have children.
"Only by not having children can I live the way I do now," Zheng said. "I only have to think about myself, which is the part I enjoy most."
Vable Liu, a 29-year-old English teacher in Jinan, said about a third of her friends are DINKs. She and her husband recently posted a video defending their choice, highlighting that happiness is not exclusive to those with children.