China demographics thread.

[BoeingEngineer]

I have been lurking in the trend for a while now, and I just want to ask if someone can give a summary:

1 why is there a general low desire to have children in well developed economies?
2 following on is there any developed country in the world that has successfully counter acted this low desire and boosted indigenous population?
3 what should China do to change this desire?

From my observation no country have successfully reversed population decline through paying extra child care benefits

Western Influence leads to Feminism and LGBT lead to Hypergamy leads to Low Birth Rate !!

 

[BoeingEngineer]

By contrast, if we look at East Asia, we have South Korea at 0.8, Japan at 1.37, and China at 1.18 based on 2022 numbers.

These TFR figures are absolutely at a crisis level for East Asia. While Western propagandists like Zeihan love to talk about how China's demographics are uniquely catastrophic (while utterly ignoring the fact that South Korea and Taiwan have even lower birth rates), the fact that East Asian birth rates are the lowest in the world (along with Eastern European birth rates) cannot be ignored.

There are factors particularly wrong with East Asian contemporary cultures that are causing them to abandon fertility and traditional family values altogether.If this is not fixed, East Asia will, without question, become a region of extremely aged societies, with all the attendant problems there of. Yes, they will be joined in this state by Eastern Europe, and much of Western Europe. But the transition in East Asia will be particularly acute, while for countries like Germany and the US, it will be more gradual, even if they were ahead to begin with.

East Asia is quickly catching up to how aged Europe is, but without the benefits of the European welfare state. This will be a serious wake up call for Asian governments, as countries like South Korea will reach "extremely aged" even before Europe if they cannot fix their birth rates.

The West, especially the US wants 0 East Asian birth that could possible threaten Anglo White supremacy. As the west declines more and more, their ability to control and dominate the world gets WIPED OUT !! Westerners (White people), especially Anglo now have an urge to kill everyone they see as threats !! (Arabs muslims, Russian Slaves, East Asians, African Americans, etc, etc)

Western values such as feminist movement, LGBT are the causes of low East Asian birth !!

Which is why China needs to decouple with the West especially the US to protect itself !!

As long as China remain a 1 party state, it will be make changes quickly and effectively, which is why the low birth internal threat is minor. It is the US that pose the greatest existential threat to China and East Asians !!

 

[Abominable]

You need to broaden your definition of what "economic" means. You seem to think the only solution is to shower people with ever-increasing quantities of money, and that's not what I'm advocating. What I advocate is government intervention throughout the economy and society to realign incentives toward higher fertility through both reward and punishment. Examples of such methods:

• Taxes on people without children. Tax exemptions for people with children.
• Expanded career and educational opportunities for people with 2+ children and the children themselves.
• Minimum quotas on companies hiring people with children and punishments for not granting sufficient child care leave, etc.
• Fines on companies who have too many senior employees without children.

That's direct economic intervention. China is also unique in that the government has a very strong hold on the media and cultural industries. There you can implement the same reward/punishment system for film studios/television show producers/social media companies to push pro-natal narratives and suppress anti-natal ones.

You can broadly caption my ideas as "Affirmative Action for the Two Child Family" and funding that affirmative action program through taxes on people outside it.

I agree with those proposals, but how do you prevent disorder when they are imposed? Even if you enforce order there may be widespread dissatisfaction you need to contend with.

You need to implement an ideology that glorifies having children and family. A campaign to go back to cultural values is an easy one as it has worked in the past.

 

[BoeingEngineer]

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The more I look at what is happening in the West. The more I thank Chinese Communist Party !!

Xi needs to become King/Emperor and that will instantly solve this low birthrate problem !!

.

 

[Deleted member 23272]

My two cents is that this is just the new normal. Amidst all the takes here (and ngl, some of which are quite incelly), fact remains that even if China is a middle income country, the standard of living in most of the big cities is now comparable to that of developed countries and the young likewise increasingly have the same mindset.

This isn't the middle ages anymore, where you basically needed children otherwise there'd be nobody to till your farm when you grow old and frail. People have children mostly for the novelty, and yes some still have children as a retirement plan. But whose to say with automation progressing the way it is, retirement homes will be so advanced that you won't even need children?

You can push incentives for people to have children, but as with anything in China enforcement will be scattershot, and by and large people will just ignore the rules especially if the penalties are simply economic rather than being thrown in jail. Now if we get to the latter part in terms of enforcement the predictable will happen, you'll just get brain drain. You could promote a culture that glorifies having children, but that takes time and considering the Chinese entertainment industry is still in its infancy and also hit a road bump because of COVID and government crackdowns, don't count on that happening anytime soon.

In terms of solutions, I think China should seriously start considering a temporary migrant worker program the same way the Gulf countries do, especially since I know not all Chinese are privy to the idea of immigration nor do I want the social chaos you see in Western countries. Come to think of it, I don't know why this should be a problem, since many African countries are already implementing Chinese education in their curriculum. Shit from online youtube vids, many African teens already speak Chinese way better than I do. There's also the much discussed fact that automation will mean countries are going to need smaller work forces in the future.

More to the point broadly, and I guess this is the case with all countries. Socieites that have the demographic dividend now will meet the same fate once they get close to industrialized status. So perhaps its time to search for a new economic model that won't be so reliant on how many babies a country can pop out.

 

[Ptah]

This already happened in Greece around 500 BCE and also byzantine. The hedonistic society fails to produce children. I remember reading Rome introduced laws barring childless men from positions due to this. Italy has suffered from this problem I think from the 80s. Rural towns become abandoned and everyone moves into the city. Japan is paying people to get out of Tokyo.

The USA, Canada, Australia and Europe have solved this problem through immigration. They are lucky to absorb migrants from South America, Eastern Europe, balkans, Ukraine and Russia. China and Japan CANNOT due to tradition. I imagine half of ukraine and a third of Russians will emigrate after this senseless war

India, will be the next booster to the world economy for the next 2-3 decades. I hope Africans will have gotten their act together by then.

Just by demographics which is already cast in stone, this century is Asia's century and the next Africas.

What shocks me and grieves me is that the USA will still be a superpower just by the sheer resources and its unique ability to adapt.

China has now entered into the slow growth club but I feel it will achieve amazing scientific achievements by 2100.

 

[Deleted member 23272]

India, will be the next booster to the world economy for the next 2-3 decades. I hope Africans will have gotten their act together by then.

I mean if these countries can solve corruption and dysfunctional government then great, if not then China's problems are solved since its got a reliable source of migrant labor.

 

[tokenanalyst]

I agree with those proposals, but how do you prevent disorder when they are imposed? Even if you enforce order there may be widespread dissatisfaction you need to contend with.

You need to implement an ideology that glorifies having children and family. A campaign to go back to cultural values is an easy one as it has worked in the past.

If you want that, society will have to accept some inconvenient truths.

-Stop the demonization of full time motherhood and being housewife, stop encouraging women to spend half of their useful fertile lives pursuing careers instead of forming families. Or find a balance between the two.
-Encourage people to marry young and have children young.
-Ban dating apps.
-Control the Central Bank induced hyperinflation of economic assets so young men can acquire some wealth at a younger age.
-Stop treating boys like if they are defective girls. There are some behavior that maybe is innate.

 

[BoeingEngineer]

India, will be the next booster to the world economy for the next 2-3 decades. I hope Africans will have gotten their act together by then.

Just by demographics which is already cast in stone, this century is Asia's century and the next Africas.

What shocks me and grieves me is that the USA will still be a superpower just by the sheer resources and its unique ability to adapt.

China has now entered into the slow growth club but I feel it will achieve amazing scientific achievements by 2100.

lol, if this is how you africans see things. No wonder why you africans are hopeless !!

 

[Gogurt4ever]

If you want that, society will have to accept some inconvenient truths.

-Stop the demonization of full time motherhood and being housewife, stop encouraging women to spend half of their useful fertile lives pursuing careers instead of forming families. Or find a balance between the two.
-Encourage people to marry young and have children young.
-Ban dating apps.
-Control the Central Bank induced hyperinflation of economic assets so young men can acquire some wealth at a younger age.
-Stop treating boys like if they are defective girls. There are some behavior that maybe is innate.

Parroting Tucker Carlson grievances will do absolutely nothing to remedy China's demographic issues. The truth is that socially conservative countries in East Asia have identical or worse demographics than virtually all Western "woke" countries, even if you adjust for immigration. If you want to blame culture, a more realistic culprit is the combination of a capitalist, highly individualized consumer culture, combined with East Asian work culture. Add overpriced housing to this, and you will find that a high TFR is almost incompatible with modern capitalist urbanized life in East Asia.

People like to look for easy solutions that fit their cultural preferences, but simply flipping a "no feminism" switch won't do a thing (especially in countries that have little feminism in the first place). Rather, you have to recreate the material conditions that encouraged childbearing, be it low-tech rural farming or single income families. The only other way is massive government investment/redistribution to pay parents for the cost of having children, including career-related opportunity costs.

Things like "appreciation of motherhood" will come when the economy, and the way society is structured stops discouraging motherhood, not when you've kicked out all the feminists or w/e.