Fewer people consume more. The state consumes more. Neither of these modes of consumption are bounded.
China demographics thread.
- Thread starter gadgetcool5
- Start date
China itself will be struggling with climate change in southern China. It will be interesting to see if the 2 decade population decrease of northern China can be reviewed. Everything north of Henan was declining in population except Beijing.
I suspect that border provinces with similar minorities will be popular migrant destinations from Southeast Asians i.e. Vietnamese in Guangxi and Burmese in Yunnan.
Newly urbanized Chinese maybe will migrate to central and northern cities like Xi'an, Zhengzhou, Shenyang, etc. especially with cheaper housing and government jobs. Lots of little problems can be overlooked with cheap houses, money, and everyone speaking Mandarin.
Bro which country in SEA do you lived? here in Manila we are talking at the high 40s and reaching 51 in certain communities, face to face attendance in school had been canceled and ordered to do online schooling. If you're in HCM, Singapore or BKK it's more hotter and I feel sorry for you.
I'm in Singapore. It's not nearest as hot as the Philippines, we're averaging around 35-42 degrees and day to day life has been "normal", no school cancellations or heat stroke deaths so far. But people are definitely noticing the heat, especially since the last 5 years have also been really hot. There's discussion on the long term future of the country and there's people planning to leave for colder climates, though most of them want to move to America, Canada or Europe, but some are considering China. More would probably consider China if China had a easier migration process.
There's a limit to how much a person or state can consume. Short of some fully automated post scarcity society, population cannot fall too much too fast, not with the world's current economical system.
Northern eastern China will be very important to China in the future, and I fully expect it the population decline to eventually reverse. It a bit of a shame that so much infrastructure and people are concentrated in the greater bay area. Not going is it going to have to deal with heatwaves, but also increased chances of massive floods
Northeastern China used to be a wasteland until Mao sent pioneers there to open the frontier.
Unfortunately, population growth and youth are concentrated in the south. Not even in economically developed provinces, but the south - there's more youth and lower % elderly in poor Guizhou, Guangxi and Yunnan, as well as rich Guangdong, Fujian and Hainan, than in rich Shanghai, Beijing and Jiangsu.
Henan, regarded as the historical population center of China, has shown population decline for the first time in 62 years.
I do hope that northern provinces can get more population but the lack of water in the area north of the Yellow River is a big, big problem. That is why the north-south water transfer project is going to be of critical importance.
Agreed with pretty much all points, except just one: given the extremely problematic fertility rates, the immigration has to also be HUGE to sustain the loss in young people and labor force. So, overly restrictive policy won't make a difference in offsetting low births.
One other point to add: Ageing demographics generally also correlates with lower innovation for similar amount of wealth, and educational attainment. Old people are just more likely to be complacent, resistant to new tech and disruptions, and poor early adopters of new tech. No wonder Japanese automotive industry has fared the worst in the changing auto industry trends.
I believe Chinese leadership can handle the issue, it has access to a lot of policy tools that other major countries have not had. However, the issue is if they realize the enormity of the issue so that they can muster the necessary resources and political will to make the changes required.
it has to be a combination of immigration and supporting internal fertility.
there will be immigration pull from incentive/development and push through climate change/war. This will be a major challenge for China. 五胡乱华 came about because of poor integration by Cao Wei and Jin. Although it is unlikely that China will have something like that era again, where 1/3 of the population was non-Han, smaller integration problems can definitely intensify existing social tensions.
The major issue is if the government recognizes the issue in time, and the enormity of it. For a long time, the population control bureaucracy deliberately played up the 'problem' of population. In fact, all of their forecasts were so optimistic. It was the correct decision to essentially disband it. I fear there is now a need of a population expansion bureaucracy, which encourages births and helps people on the way.
That's true in some extend, but with this current Chinese population decline, there's nothing much to worried as long as stem grads population still increase for another 20 years.
I suspect that overseas Chinese communities will be prioritize first, then ethnic Hmong people as their fertility rate high and can integrate to Chinese society.
Also maybe there will be mass migration from Mongolia to china than Vietnam due to desertification that Mongolia can't control.
I don't think it's not right to compare with Japan just now, south Korea also have aging pop but still innovate well. Chinese demographics now is like Korea in 1997 during AFC, so china has about 25 years time prior to see the problems of Korean demographics and fixed it before.
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South Korean median age (2020) --> 43
Japan median age (2020) --> 48
5 years difference is quite large.
Also, Japan has been older for far longer.
Japan median age (2000) --> 40
South Korea median age (2000) ---> 31
So Japan has had very high median ages for this whole millenia, while South Korea was relatively young even 10 years back. It's just that South Korea is on a very fast and accelerated pace of birth decline.
China is very unlike either of these countries, because of policy interventions (one-child policy), major dips in demographics (due to Famine etc.). So, it is very different. However, in some metrics it's birth rate is declining even faster than South Korea.
China's median age (2020) is already around 37, which was South Korea's median age around 2012-13. So the median age is just 7-8 years behind South Korea.
I think China is best placed in terms of handling the issue because Chinese state simply has more policy levers available, more capacity to muster etc. The issue is if they realize the enormity of the issue and take corresponding action at a national scale.