Probably still patting their backs for the wild success of the One Child Policy and earlier Two Child Policy started in the mid-1970s for preventing the births of 600 million useless eaters.
China demographics thread.
- Thread starter gadgetcool5
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Probably still patting their backs for the wild success of the One Child Policy and earlier Two Child Policy started in the mid-1970s for preventing the births of 600 million useless eaters.
I don't think they know what to do. Demographics collapse is a problem for which there is no current play book. Japan and South Korea both failed to arrest the decline while it was happening. Time will eventually mitigate the effect - Japan is "back" because the effects of extreme aging are self correcting after a couple of generations, due to natural selection and housing collapse.
But to stop it while it's going on, that's hard. And unfortunately for China it's coming at a time when the competition with the US is heating up. Actually, that's probably why the US decided to strike right around this time. It figures it can catch China while it's experiencing demographic collapse.
I think a great deal of creativity will be required, and I don't think the ~70 years old government officials know what to do because just the idea of choosing not to have children is insane to their generation. Remember we're talking about the generation of Chinese who grew up with five brothers and sisters during the Mao days. They can't possibly understand what's going on in young people's minds today.
But to stop it while it's going on, that's hard. And unfortunately for China it's coming at a time when the competition with the US is heating up. Actually, that's probably why the US decided to strike right around this time. It figures it can catch China while it's experiencing demographic collapse.
I think a great deal of creativity will be required, and I don't think the ~70 years old government officials know what to do because just the idea of choosing not to have children is insane to their generation. Remember we're talking about the generation of Chinese who grew up with five brothers and sisters during the Mao days. They can't possibly understand what's going on in young people's minds today.
Btw this line of thinking, which is publicly expressed by hundreds of GOP pundits on YouTube and right-wing media outlets, has ZERO traction within China itself. I've literally never heard of a SINGLE Chinese person who thinks China's current demographic catastrophe is going to undermine China's ability to overcome the United States' murderous intentions. Reversely, I've never heard of a SINGLE Chinese person or Chinese media outlet encourage China to tackle its demographic crisis in order to ensure that China will never be subjugated by the US or any other country. I feel like there is intense apathy in China on this topic from the ground up and any calls for increased fertility are always met with intense scorn and derision from the average person.
To make city dwellers want to have kids you need to make family sized housing affordable, not only is that competition against sparse land, you're also directly going against the interest of investment home owners who only want the house prices to go up.
PeoplesPoster
Junior Member
Or make it easier for city dwellers to buy land in the surrounding countryside. Right now it’s virtually impossible, most you can do is a rental for 20 years, no one’s wants to invest into a temporary home like that.
Other than issues of land accessibility, they will also need to build out the public transport infrastructure to rural areas, make rural area more attractive by providing more services and commute to the city easier. Alternatively enforce work from home culture so that people can work anywhere.
Besides the benefits and cheap housing which might help with a slower decline in TFR the biggest issue is cultural because right now there is almost all over the world the free fall of births, Europe included. I remember seeing the Korean American graph for TFR and they have almost the same below 1.0 TFR as in Korea!
I think the conclusion is that good benefits and cheap housing might help but it will be like raising the TFR from the current 1.1 in China to the level of Japan 1.3.
In my opinion, to have better TFR you need to change the mentality and lifestyle of big city life.
I think the conclusion is that good benefits and cheap housing might help but it will be like raising the TFR from the current 1.1 in China to the level of Japan 1.3.
In my opinion, to have better TFR you need to change the mentality and lifestyle of big city life.
And if you ask me, that is a far, far bigger problem than the fertility rate itself. Before change can happen, peoples mentality has to wake up.
Because with even the most doomest trajection we are still talking about a china with like 800~1000 million citizens in 2100 if I'm not mistaken.
In 2050 China will still be 3.5 times the US, in 2100 China still be around double the US in population numbers. This is without taking in account of black swan events like de-dollarization, growth of global south. What happens with US numbers when global citizens don't want to migrate to the US anymore? Because the dollar went from king dollar to one of the pleb coins. The economics is not worth being seperated from family.
Then you also have to look at the US vassals in the neighborhood of China like south Korea and Japan both are also declining in population numbers and economic might.
China demographic problem will be more of a government budget problem as long as chinese people continue innovating in tech they will be secure.
Not saying they should stop fixing this it's still a problem that needs to be solved.
In my opinion, the Chinese government should encourage companies to relocate to smaller cities. Compared to large megacities like Shanghai, the cost of living in smaller cities like Ningde should be drastically lower. I had a conversation with a friend from mainland China recently, and he said that many young Chinese adults feel the need to relocate to megacities because they are where the vast majority of high-paying jobs are located.