China demographics thread.

[manqiangrexue]

Israel is valid as a counter argument. Even among secular Jews in Israel fertility rates are high, 2.2. The fact that Haredi Jews don't contribute much to the Israeli economy - these people still need to be fed, educated and housed. Yet Israel can manage that while still being a high HDI country. Israel is in the middle of the desert yet the average citizen has a much higher standard of living than the average Chinese person.

There is no equivalent in Chinese society to the Haredi Jews, so a net position fertility rate will be much more beneficial for society.

OK so now we need to actually examine why. Is Israeli work stress much lower? Cost of living low? Is it religiously mandated to have more children? Which of these things do you want to apply to China in order to get people having more kids?

Even if we throw out Israel as an example, what about every west European and North European countries historically?

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The period between 1950 and 1975 aka the "baby boomer" generation was between 2.5 and 3. If those rates would have been maintained the west wouldn't be on the verge of collapse as it is now.

The idea that for a country to be developed fertility rates need to be sub replacement is a myth and certainly wasn't intended. If it's so good to have low fertility rates, why is virtually every developed country spending billions on trying to get people to have children?
Why are they receptive of so much immigration?

Hold on now. I didn't say that a nation needs to have low fertility rates to become a developed country; I said it was a natural phenomenon all over the world for fertility rates to drop as a country becomes a developed country. That's true in Europe and Asia as a matter of fact and right now, that's true in China too. This is the course the nature takes. That's what I said.

If you want Chinese people to break this pattern, how will you convince them? Can you convince them without reducing work stress and cost of a comfortable living?

This is what I'm talking about when I said fact vs. your imagination and how this is not some game where you can control reproduction and immigration/emigration at the click of a mouse.

As long as population growth is managed to predictable improvements in agriculture, there won't be any shortages. Over the last century, food availability has by far outgrown population growth.

Maybe globally, but China has its challenges it needs to face before it has the excess make people want to significantly hike the fertility rate.

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Even if there is somehow a food shortage or we reach a bottleneck for food production. Historically what do countries do if they run low on land or resources? They expand, sometimes through war. If you don't do it someone else will.

This.... is weird. If you're talking about expanding Chinese population by conquering neighboring terrorites with significant arable land, that's totally outside of the scope of the conversation. I'm well aware you can start taking over the world to expand your civilization but I don't think China's looking to beat up anyone who's non-hostile and devour them. I'm talking about peaceful development, though under constant threat and competition from the West.

Developed countries don't depend on natural resources for wealth generation, that's what third world countries do. It's a reason why countries like Argentina are now poor. Maybe for a country like modern day Russia a shrinking population is a good idea.

Yes, China's wealth generation comes from technological growth but that doesn't mean that people don't need land to live in and to grow food.

If the population growth is slow enough there shouldn't be a need for ghost cities.

They're not a problem; I love ghost cities because China can fill them up.

That need comes from the urbanisation of rural China which is occurring at much higher rate and is probably the reason why services in major cities feel overwhelmed.

Yup

There's no fundamental difference between a two or three child policy and one child policy. No one will flee China because of it. Limit career growth and party membership to couple who have two or three children.

Don't think so. Brilliant career-oriented people who choose to have 1 or no kids (some who are biologically sterile) will have a lot of pent up hate for your system and if they are indeed useful people, I can see them getting very easily recruited to work for foreign powers. I don't see how you can conclude that no one will emigrate due to it.

Westerners will talk about how evil CCP is but they'll be jealous as they are forced to resort to more and more migration to fill labour shortages.

We're already there.

Japan had the highest GDP per capita in the developed world for many years post WW2, was more industrialised than any western country for a while. America pretty much sacrificed their domestic auto industry and let the Japanese take over.

You have heard of the Plaza Accord and how the US saw Japan as an economic threat, thus knee-capping Japan's economy, right? I feel like you're not familiar with this part of history.

60 isn't a common age of retirement in most countries, especially for a professor.

Right, 60 year old professors are super great; masters of their field are usually of this age range except in computer tech.

What about a more physical job?

Machines

I think old people are less useful than they were historically. Technology is moving too fast and a lot get left behind. In the olden times technology didn't change from childhood to old age. Nowadays the world changes a lot in 20 years, let alone a lifetime.

Well, historically, they were useless because in an age of physical labor, that's what it is. In the age of information, they are very useful. And of course there are some fields where youngsters dominate, but in many fields like physics, material science, chemistry, biology, etc... old professors rule.

OECD countries are all gradually increasing the age of retirement. It's because they can no longer afford to offer the elderly the care they used to. Life expectancies have plateaued and will start dropping soon. And this is all despite the improvements in technology and medicine.

In a country like America the age of retirement is only a few years less than the average life expectancy of some groups, like black males. Eventually it will be like that for everyone.

Well, there are many factors. In the most competitive configuration, people would work for as long as they could and not live too long afterwards.

Anyway, I would jump for joy to see a China that is sustained and several times the population/economy as today. 5 Beijings, 4 Shanghais, 6 Shenzhens, the West might as well have a beer and take a nap, no way to compete with that. BUT there are 3 major points:

1. According to natural progression, which is a drop in fertility rate for high tech developed countries before a more comfortable and more productive lifestyle is attained entering into a fast cruise mode, which would bring the fertility rate back up into equilibrium, China's going to come out to top. It's going to be a mature civilization several times the size of America. There's no need to fear or avoid this fate and try crazy things to change it.

2. Maybe China can expand to a gargantuan size but it's not ready to do so with what we have today. Food security and technology is not there, not even close. Maybe in the near future, where we see farming tech and genetics advance to where very good food starts becoming very cheap, that's a good start. Right now, China's lower tier earners have a lot of trouble affording good quality protein. Construction, China's on that no problem.

3. And then, we'll need to see a cultural shift where people don't just look for the most prestigious place to work but one that is suitable for them. That will probably come hand-in-hand with a change into a more relaxed work culture. None of that is happening until China overtakes the US to build those supreme tech tools that will allow China to keep ahead without strenuous exertion, so basically, we're not there yet. And without these things, I don't see how you would convince people who are struggling in life to have (more) kids.

 

[Abominable]

You're mistaking correlation for causation. IVF is used by infertile couples, so of course it's going to appear more difficult than natural pregnancy. That's not because the technology is fundamentally limited, that's because the sample of people who use it is heavily biased. This is not a factor in how I propose to use it.

Wrong. With a natural birth, the mother can go from pregancy to delivery and discharge without seeing a specialist. That is not the case with IVF.

There reasons why a fertile couple may undergo IVF e.g. genetic screening. But it's inherently a more expensive and complicated process than natural childbirth.

That would be the case for any successful solution. Anything that increases births will entail more gynaecologists, obstetricians, etc. It's what you'd call "suffering from success."

No it's not. More gynaecologists mean less other specialties. Sucks if you have cancer or an autoimmune disease. If you're going to train more doctors than that's less highly educated people in other professions, e.g scientists.

It's irrelevant what it costs in the UK, what matters is what it costs in a China that makes it a national priority to scale this technology. Solar panels were prohibitively expensive 10+ years ago and would have remained so indefinitely had China not decided to scale them and drop the price through the floor. This will also work should China decide it needs it to work. The West is a failure and if you're waiting for them to do anything right, you're going to die waiting.

You think wages in Chinese are going to remain low forever? Cabbagisation is time limited while China is still relatively poor. As China's economy continues to grow it'll shift from middle income to high income and you'll see prices approaching those of Europe.

The UK was a low end cost. I could have quoted the American cost which is 3-4x the price. If you think it's wrong feel free to tell us how much you think it'll cost.

Certainly these surrogate mothers would not do it for free. However, given that the only "qualification" is a functioning uterus, the payments could be minuscule and there would still be no end to the applicants. There are extremely poor people in the world and that's not going to ever change.

So no medical history, no testing for disease or mental health (the biggest problem in surrogacies) as long as you have a functional uterus you qualify?

Yeah, I know about Ceausescu's orphanages. The problem isn't to get a spike of births, there's umpteen ways to do that. The problem is to get a sustainable solution. Given Romania's position today, I question their suitability as an example.

The problems Romania with the increased births were because it was a poor country. That'll happen whether they were conceived naturally or via IVF.

I feel a crucial component of my solution is being overlooked: the quality of the resulting population. These children will be selected for, among other desirable traits, intellectual capacity. It's far more likely that a Yang Wei or a Qian Xuesen will emerge from this cohort (adjusted for size) than from the general population. A far higher proportion of these children will go on to get STEM PhDs than the general population. These children would be huge economic multipliers, not just linearly supplementing a declining population.

That can be done with natural conception. Eugenics (what you're advocating for) predates the invention of IVF. Other than screening for a few known genetic diseases IVF offers no benefit at all.

Your solution would be great if possible, but society won't accept it. I'm very much in favour of state bred and raised people, but I think this will remain science fiction for now

Paying families to have children hasn't really been tried yet. Usually childcare support schemes are just not generous enough to make a difference. If it costs 20,000 dollars to raise a child and your incentives are worth 5000 dollars, that's not going to help. You could also lower the retirement age for a few years for every child born to a woman. There are many financial incentives yet to be explored

It's not science fiction, what Zeek proposes can be done now. The reason it isn't is because it would be ridiculously expensive with no benefit.

It's like a government deciding people need to stop eating with their mouths and everyone has IV drips for nutrition.

 

[ZeEa5KPul]

Wrong. With a natural birth, the mother can go from pregancy to delivery and discharge without seeing a specialist. That is not the case with IVF.

No, right. Every pregnant woman sees specialists (at least in somewhat developed countries). A mother can go without seeing a specialist in a "natural" birth in the same sense that she could give birth in a cave - true, but it's just not done anymore.

There reasons why a fertile couple may undergo IVF e.g. genetic screening. But it's inherently a more expensive and complicated process than natural childbirth.

That's not the question, the question is how much more expensive and complicated. There's no basis for answering that now because China hasn't scaled up the technology yet.

No it's not. More gynaecologists mean less other specialties. Sucks if you have cancer or an autoimmune disease. If you're going to train more doctors than that's less highly educated people in other professions, e.g scientists.

That's simply not an issue in China. China has about a quarter of its labour force stuck in subsistence agriculture and it's going to take at least until the middle of the century for that to be solved. From now until then, the supply of qualified, educated people in every single scientific, engineering, medical, and biotechnological field is going to increase.

Even if what you said is true - and I stress that it isn't - then that's a sacrifice that will have to be made. China's national interest demands that these resources be used to bring into existence and raise a golden generation. If that means that some people will have to receive a lower standard of care than they otherwise might, it really does suck but those are the breaks.

And once again, by your own logic *any* increase in births will lead to resources being drawn away from other medical fields. Women don't give birth in caves anymore.

You think wages in Chinese are going to remain low forever? Cabbagisation is time limited while China is still relatively poor. As China's economy continues to grow it'll shift from middle income to high income and you'll see prices approaching those of Europe.

Wages will certainly rise but the China price will remain in perpetuity. China made cheap trinkets yesterday, it makes cheap intermediate and moderate-to-high tech goods today, and it will make both the cheapest and most advanced technology tomorrow. That's because cheap labour has nothing to do with it. Prices are so low because of efficiency and scale, and the reason China is unique in reaching these levels of efficiency and scale is because it has a hyper-achieving government no other country is close to equalling.

China will never devolve into a Western country with a bloated economy kept afloat by legacy and past theft. It won't even devolve into what East Asian democracies like Japan and Korea have become - they once had the spark but they lost it, inevitable given their political handicaps. China outshines them all today and will outshine them more brightly tomorrow.

The UK was a low end cost. I could have quoted the American cost which is 3-4x the price. If you think it's wrong feel free to tell us how much you think it'll cost.

You're making my point for me. This variability in cost shows that the fundamental limits on the cost of the technology haven't been reached and there's plenty of room for China to work its magic. How much do I think it will cost? China price, that's how much.

The problem with your arguments is that you're spouting generalities that only hold true in the resource and politics-constrained West. These arguments just don't apply to China.

So no medical history, no testing for disease or mental health (the biggest problem in surrogacies) as long as you have a functional uterus you qualify?

Where did I claim that there wouldn't be any testing? This is the second time I've asked you to read what I wrote; I don't like repeating myself.

Screening and testing is the easiest part of this. In case you hadn't noticed, China has fairly recently done medical tests on hundreds of millions of people successfully - doing so on a vastly smaller population of candidate surrogate mothers is trivial in comparison. And yes, the qualifications are not that demanding, an applicant would only need to stand a good chance of successfully bringing an embryo to term. That's not an especially onerous bar to clear.

The problems Romania with the increased births were because it was a poor country. That'll happen whether they were conceived naturally or via IVF.

I don't care what Romania's problems were, they failed therefore they are not a model to emulate. Romania's experience might interest a cultural anthropologist, but I'm not one.

That can be done with natural conception. Eugenics (what you're advocating for) predates the invention of IVF. Other than screening for a few known genetic diseases IVF offers no benefit at all.

This is where you make your most egregious errors. It absolutely cannot be done with natural conception. First of all, eugenics requires broad social buy-in and there's no indication that that's the case in China or anywhere else. Second, even if the population broadly supported the idea, there's no way to implement it without gross violations of human rights (actual human rights, not Western virtue signalling jargon). How do you "naturally" encourage the best and brightest to have a higher proportion of the children in a population without restricting the not-so-best-and-bright? Third, and most importantly, random permutations of gametes cannot produce better outcomes than carefully and accurately engineered combination.

My proposal requires no social buy-in and doesn't trample on anyone's rights. It's just technicians (or more likely robots) mixing cell lines in industrial biotech centers.

Lastly, I would like to get the idea across to you that you should look beyond the limited ways IVF is used now and imagine how it can be applied with a few modifications and improvements.

 

[ZeEa5KPul]

It's like a government deciding people need to stop eating with their mouths and everyone has IV drips for nutrition.

I wouldn't be so snide if I were you. I did not and do not advocate that the Chinese government decide everyone needs to stop eating with their mouths; people are welcome and encouraged to have children the same way they've been doing since mammals became a thing. The "IV drip" (and it's no such thing) is there in case the nutrition they're getting the mouth way is insufficient, as looks to be the case.

 

[Abominable]

No, right. Every pregnant woman sees specialists (at least in somewhat developed countries). A mother can go without seeing a specialist in a "natural" birth in the same sense that she could give birth in a cave - true, but it's just not done anymore.

Do you have any children? I'm guessing no.

As long as you are healthy and there are no complications chances are you won't be seeing a specialist before delivery. That's the case in the UK and Europe. Even many deliveries nowadays are midwife lead.

Healthy people don't need specialist intervention during pregnancy or child birth.

If anything third world countries are the ones which have specialists doing everything. A lack of auxiliary specialities means no one but doctors know what to do.

I wouldn't be so snide if I were you. I did not and do not advocate that the Chinese government decide everyone needs to stop eating with their mouths; people are welcome and encouraged to have children the same way they've been doing since mammals became a thing. The "IV drip" (and it's no such thing) is there in case the nutrition they're getting the mouth way is insufficient, as looks to be the case.

EXACTLY.

IVF is the exact same thing, it's for people who are unable to conceive naturally. You recognise that parenteral nutrition (its proper term) is a waste of time, but for some reason don't see the parallels with IVF. All you would be doing would be medicalising millions of people for no benefit.

You seem to know something about IVF that the rest of the world doesn't.

 

[ZeEa5KPul]

I can see you refuse to or cannot understand my arguments. Further discussion is pointless.

You seem to know something about IVF that the rest of the world doesn't.

No, but I do know plenty about it that you don't. For example, I know what limitations it appears to have is because it's used by infertile couples, not because it's inherently limited. You can't make that distinction, so of course building on it is futile.

 

[Abominable]

I can see you refuse to or cannot understand my arguments. Further discussion is pointless.

No, but I do know plenty about it that you don't. For example, I know what limitations it appears to have is because it's used by infertile couples, not because it's inherently limited. You can't make that distinction, so of course building on it is futile.

You have no argument. You've not given a single reason why you would implement this, or any advantage over natural births. You seem to think the fact that IVF is mainly used by infertile couples is somehow a "gotcha". You claim you know "plenty" about it but clearly have no clue how maternity care works in the developed world.

When I brought up the analogy of parenteral nutrition you seem to understand how pointless it would be to bypass an alimentary system designed to digest and absorb nutrients, yet you seem unable to expand that logic to pregnancy.

Mass IVF isn't a solution to low fertility. You're attempting to answer a question that isn't being asked. The only situation where what you are proposing may make sense is if the entire female population was stricken with mass infertility.

Your previous argument - that science would make everyone live and work until 120 was a better one. It was science fiction, but at least actually addressed the demographic problem.

 

[Tianlong]

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Let's see what comes off this!

 

[coolgod]

In the post on Weibo, a Twitter-like service, a user named ‘lost shuyushou’ described a colleague’s experience in which the colleague answered a call from the Nanjing city government’s women’s health service.

The post was taken down a few hours after it was posted along with all the comments.

"news" source: Trust me Bro

 

[manqiangrexue]

We are moving from strict one child policy to strict pro natal / pro birth policy. Get pregnant otherwise local government will keep ringing your phone.

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This is Western media.

"Luk Ding Dong told us that in the middle of the night, CCP agents took her from her bed and beat her husband nearly to death when he tried to stop them. They they drove her in an unmarked van to a secret location where they artificially inseminated her to give birth to quintuplets, despite the obvious risks to her health. They they drove her back to her home, and told her and her bloodied husband, 'Shhhh, this never happened' with a wink. And then they ate her dog. Many other online sources say the same thing happened to them."