Every year, thousands of foreign women, mostly from China, go to the United States each year in order to have their baby gain American citizenship. The Wall Street Journal recently reported on the phenomenon: typically women travel to the States on a tourist visa, and will return home with an “American baby.”

While in the United States, these women often spend thousands of dollars in private hospitals, on luxury shopping sprees, and expensive rental apartments. “Birth tourism,” or “maternity tourism,” has become very popular in some regions of the U.S., including Costa Mesa, an area southwest of Los Angeles.

2.2 million Chinese tourists traveled to the United States last year, and spent a total of $24 billion. Those traveling for birth tourism represent a small fraction of tourists from China. Chinese visitors spend the most per capita than any other group. Chinese tourists generally only spend two weeks in the country while pregnant visitors stay longer and spend more.

Karthick Ramakrishnan, a professor of public policy at University of California, Riverside, estimated that pregnant tourists in the United States spend about $1 billion a year in the country.

Source: thepaper.cn

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Keywords: Chinese tourists birth tourism maternity tourism