China demographics thread.
- Thread starter gadgetcool5
- Start date
A general rule of thumb:
total births x life expetency = future population.
If China has 9m births this year (optimistic) and life expectancy of 78 years then future population will be ~700 million.
I think China is almost certainly going to fall to rock-bottom fertility rates and then stay there. It is cultural. East Asia has the same problem everywhere. The root causes are similar: too many people packed into useless university degrees. This postpones childbirth indefinitely.
A very materialistic culture where men are expected to have fancy degrees, jobs, cars and even a house before marrying. The social expectations on men in East Asia are absolutely brutal, especially for marriage.
Lastly, very low religiosity. If you look at Israel's high fertility, most of that is just driven by religious fervor. I don't think we will see a religious revival in China (or the West) so this issue is out of question.
All the East Asian kids I see in Sweden are very impressive, but they are also put under massive social and mental strain by their parents to perform at the peak in everything. Social expectations are too high everywhere and it isn't realistic.
What some people said before is true: you need a mentality shift. Just spending some money isn't going to change things. Although China's absurdly expensive property sector isn't helping things. That's a policy failure. The West has also failed here but the price-to-income ratios in tier 1 cities in China is *far* above anything you'd see in London, Amsterdam, Sydney etc.
total births x life expetency = future population.
If China has 9m births this year (optimistic) and life expectancy of 78 years then future population will be ~700 million.
I think China is almost certainly going to fall to rock-bottom fertility rates and then stay there. It is cultural. East Asia has the same problem everywhere. The root causes are similar: too many people packed into useless university degrees. This postpones childbirth indefinitely.
A very materialistic culture where men are expected to have fancy degrees, jobs, cars and even a house before marrying. The social expectations on men in East Asia are absolutely brutal, especially for marriage.
Lastly, very low religiosity. If you look at Israel's high fertility, most of that is just driven by religious fervor. I don't think we will see a religious revival in China (or the West) so this issue is out of question.
All the East Asian kids I see in Sweden are very impressive, but they are also put under massive social and mental strain by their parents to perform at the peak in everything. Social expectations are too high everywhere and it isn't realistic.
What some people said before is true: you need a mentality shift. Just spending some money isn't going to change things. Although China's absurdly expensive property sector isn't helping things. That's a policy failure. The West has also failed here but the price-to-income ratios in tier 1 cities in China is *far* above anything you'd see in London, Amsterdam, Sydney etc.
In light of the rise of AI and climate change the shrinking of the population is a good thing for China. There might be problems 20 or 25 years down the road. But for now I don't see a problem with China's shrinking population.
Now maybe in another two or three decades time climate change will be so bad and AI will be so good that people don't even want or need children anymore.
I really envy the old these days. They might have experience the best period of humanity. I'am not so optimistic about the future.
Now maybe in another two or three decades time climate change will be so bad and AI will be so good that people don't even want or need children anymore.
I really envy the old these days. They might have experience the best period of humanity. I'am not so optimistic about the future.
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I'm skeptical that the EdTech ban was ever about trying to increase the fertility rate, and if that was the goal, it certainly failed. Rather, it had nothing to do with the fertility rate. It was more about generally cracking down on Chinese tech, especially Chinese software, since Xi felt it wasn't sufficiently communist. That has now come to an end-- for now.
The real problem is culture -- China's culture (or rather, East Asia's, if we're being honest) that every child must be better than the neighbor's child in school, and this creates an impossible rat race where the majority of people are doomed to be losers. This in turn is based on the East Asian notion that the sole value in life is either material goods (as shown by Western brand name handbags, expensive houses, etc.), or academic achievement. One reason why highly religious societies have higher birth rates, is that people have something else (e.g. God) to believe in and find comfort in, and are less materialistic and competitive.
How many of you have kids? They are exhausting. If you don't already have one, you cannot truly comprehend how tiring raising children is.
And unlike everything else, development and rising living standards make raising children harder, not easier.
Most couples, Chinese couples included, still have at least 1 kid. The problem is, after people see how tiring raising one kid is, half stop having kids, and the other half have at most 1 more. For modern parents, subjective marginal returns from having additional children turn very negative very quickly. That's not enough - you need every couple to have at least 2 kids, and some to have 3, to keep the population stable.
The marginal returns from additional children are so negative, that I don't think there's any reasonable inducement any government can offer that can get people to have 2-3 kids/couple on a societal level in a modern developed country. Raising kids in our modern world is just too much work, especially compared to everything else which has been made easier and more comfortable by technology.
And unlike everything else, development and rising living standards make raising children harder, not easier.
Most couples, Chinese couples included, still have at least 1 kid. The problem is, after people see how tiring raising one kid is, half stop having kids, and the other half have at most 1 more. For modern parents, subjective marginal returns from having additional children turn very negative very quickly. That's not enough - you need every couple to have at least 2 kids, and some to have 3, to keep the population stable.
The marginal returns from additional children are so negative, that I don't think there's any reasonable inducement any government can offer that can get people to have 2-3 kids/couple on a societal level in a modern developed country. Raising kids in our modern world is just too much work, especially compared to everything else which has been made easier and more comfortable by technology.
That's nonsense. Majority of average people aren't going to hire private tutors and can't afford to do so. That's a fact. For those that are wealthy and tiger moms, you can't stop them from using illegal tutoring. The goal is never about stopping tutoring but preventing ever more escalating demand and advertising of tutoring that are draining the finance of middle class families.
Before the crackdown, many middle class already has spent a few thousands or tens of thousands per month for tutoring as peer pressure and advertising bombardment have created a situation that kids started to take more and more tutoring classes. Right now, at least most middle class stopped the practice of getting their kids multiple tutoring classes per day.
It might not incentivize middle class parents to have more kids but at least the policies have prevented middle class parents from financial distresses. As for crackdown on tech, Edtech has little to do with big techs and monopolies such as Alibaba and Tencent. So trying to link them together is absurd.
Cracking down on gaming to prevent gaming addiction for young kids. Cracking down on Edtech, to prevent parents from spending a ridiculous amount of money for nothing. Cracking down on big techs. to prevent monopolies and financial risks of fintech and a threat to the Communist party. Don't try to link them together to support your agenda.
The real problem is the feminist movement that were imported from the West but evolved into a monster that is now uncontrollable. Chinese women in more conservative parts of China still have much more children than those living in the more liberal parts of country. However, the social media has allowed such ideology to spread further and deeper into interior part of China.
Religion brainwashed people and forced women into secondary role in a marriage. Consequently, it is the subservient role of women in a religious family that made having children more viable. It has nothing to do with so call spiritual fulfillment. In a religious family, women became baby makers instead of an equal partner.
So your position is that women should be in a more subservient role?
But the question is, why are they unwilling to do that work? Raising children is a lot of work all over the world. It's not like Chinese children are more work than say, Malaysian children, for example. But if you look at Malaysia, Chinese account for 25% of deaths yet only 8-9% of births. The TFR for Chinese is way lower than that of native Malays. And around the world, there are high income countries with high birth rates (like Israel), or relatively high birth rates (like the U.S., where the white TFR in 2022 was 1.57), and then you have East Asian countries like South Korea where the TFR is 0.74.
So why is that? I would argue it's not because of economics, a bigger part of it has to do with culture. More religious groups (like Malays, who are overwhelmingly Muslim) are more willing to put in the work, even amid a modern society.
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No, I don't. I am just against extreme feminist movement. In addition, women need to be more realistic and pragmatic. As many women has fallen to the prey of unrealistic fantasy that propels by extreme groups and NGOs.
Chinese Malaysians are much more educated and wealthy than native Malaysians. Your comparison isn't totally objective. As people getting more wealthy and educated, the birth rate tends to go down even for many conservative and religious societies. You can see that in Saudi Arabian, India and Iran which all are deeply religious societies.
As for Israel, you have a group of religious people that don't work and live on welfare and their sole purpose of lives are reading their Hebrew bible and making babies. Ultra-Orthodox families represent only 13% of the population but each of them have 6.5 children. However, this kind of welfare isn't sustainable and 10 years from now Israel would be forced to cut back welfare as these people would become 1/3 of the population by 2065.
Again, religion has made women into a subservient role which indoctrinated women into having children. Similarly, a more conservative societies have the same effect. So in conclusion, economy plays a major role of women having babies or not as more educated and wealthy women were the less likely they would have children EXCEPT those extremely wealth women that can hire multiple nannies to take care of their children. Conservatism can delay and slow down the decline of birth rate. Conservatism and religious conservatism tend to slow down the decline of birth rate through indoctrination. Although, all modern and wealthy societies, you can't have women that don't work and provide for family.
Furthermore, Native Malaysians have the luxury of support from the more hard working and educated and wealthy Chinese Malaysians. Without, hard working Chinese Malaysians, Malaysia would be much less developed and won't be afforded to allow many Native Malaysians to have so many welfare. Same thing with Israel, in Ultra-Orthodox families, most men don't work which is made possible by the secular Israelis that were forced to pay more tax to support them.