China already has better life expectancy than the US. They just need to raise the retirement age and improve healthcare so that people can continue to work until later in age. Sure there is a demographic problem, but China isn't different in this case from other advanced economies like Japan or South Korea.
China demographics thread.
- Thread starter gadgetcool5
- Start date
manqiangrexue
Brigadier
You're giving this advice to yourself, right? You're the only one who needs it here. You posted an article pretending to panic that China's population is collapsing, then later posted to never trust those things that only you post.
Yeah there is no grim situation. "High youth unemployment" and "not enough youth to run the economy" can't both be problems. Oh wait, the West told you they were, so you're here regurgitating them now over and over again not heeding your own advice.
Make no mistake, the number of births still dropped from 2022 despite the end of pandemic lock downs. Far from the post pandemic birth boom certain people expected. This shows the cause of TFR collapse was structural, not external; which in turn indicates increasing it will be much harder.
I'm willing to do my part. Single Chinese ladies hit me up. (I'm totally not doing this to escape the imperial core.)
The number comes better than expected, Chinese demographers were expecting just 7.88 million births and 3 million deaths, that mean the contrary of what you are saying it could be a turn, but let see this year because a human pregnancy takes 9 months.
Unlike economic impacts, there has never been any clear indication of what impact Covid lockdowns have on births - positive or negative. In some countries, it has been speculated that lockdowns boosted births due to people working from home. The TFR collapse has always been known as structural - I have posted the reason why before. The collapse in births began in 2018, well before Covid. It followed the decline in marriages that began in 2014.
It does seem that the Chinese government is getting into a game of managing expectations. Some university and population officials threw out the numbers of 7 - 8 million earlier in the year, and China allowed the rumor of 8 million to trend on social media earlier in 2023.
But even then, 9.02 million is better than expected. We will have to see whether there will be a more medium or long term badly needed stabilization, or if China is going down the South Korea route.
There's a dynamic in a declining population that people haven't commented on - wealth concentration as the assets of the departed are inherited by fewer people. Wealth increases don't just occur as a result of productivity increases in this scenario, but also because there are fewer people sharing in that increased wealth. This has a natural countervailing effect on the decline of the population. Fewer people means more resources per person and less competition, which means people are more likely to have children.
The dynamics are essentially the same as bacteria in a petri dish - there's a period of expansion as resources are huge and the population is low, then there is stabilization and even decline as populations exceed resources. Once a critical point is reached when resources again exceed population, a new phase of expansion occurs, and so on ad infinitum.
The dynamics are essentially the same as bacteria in a petri dish - there's a period of expansion as resources are huge and the population is low, then there is stabilization and even decline as populations exceed resources. Once a critical point is reached when resources again exceed population, a new phase of expansion occurs, and so on ad infinitum.
Or to put it in historical terms, population numbers exploded during prosperous times in past dynasties. When the population hits the malthusian limit, it starts to shrink until sufficient resources are around for the population to climb again and the cycle begins anew.
There are more limits than just food and more ways for growth to self-correct than just war and famine.
That’s assuming the TFR decreases are due to lack of resources and not due to cultural change. Yet evidence indicates the latter is far more significant because the drop in TFR is clearly driven by marriage collapse.
You can’t tell me the collapse of marriage in modern China is because people have less resources than they did in the early 20th century when TFR was 5 and the country was experiencing war & famine. Yes, the population is higher but there is far more to go around. Starvation is no longer a constant threat & people have access to luxuries, services, and are generally just wealthier.
This trend extends beyond China as plenty of sparsely populated European countries are also experiencing TFR and marriage collapse. But East Asian societies are particularly bad even controlling for their level of development and wealth. This speaks to a cultural issue, which having more resources won’t necessarily resolve - just look at Japan, which has a high standard of living & plenty of child support policies but still struggles to raise its TFR above historical lows.
Ironically, a strong argument could be made that modern TFR collapse is actually a product of cultural decadence caused by material prosperity.
After all, why have kids - which are a huge responsibility - when you could indulge in crass materialism instead?
You can’t tell me the collapse of marriage in modern China is because people have less resources than they did in the early 20th century when TFR was 5 and the country was experiencing war & famine. Yes, the population is higher but there is far more to go around. Starvation is no longer a constant threat & people have access to luxuries, services, and are generally just wealthier.
This trend extends beyond China as plenty of sparsely populated European countries are also experiencing TFR and marriage collapse. But East Asian societies are particularly bad even controlling for their level of development and wealth. This speaks to a cultural issue, which having more resources won’t necessarily resolve - just look at Japan, which has a high standard of living & plenty of child support policies but still struggles to raise its TFR above historical lows.
Ironically, a strong argument could be made that modern TFR collapse is actually a product of cultural decadence caused by material prosperity.
After all, why have kids - which are a huge responsibility - when you could indulge in crass materialism instead?
Last edited:
You are still thinking too constrained. Good housing, good education, good jobs, and good vacation spots are all resources. Fundamentally the Mathusian idea is about "population" which is something that can grow exponentially (i.e. self-replicating) and "resources" which grow linearly (i.e. things that require external work to reproduce). It is really a statement of the nature of things than anything else.
Houses, fancy purses, and cars are not self-replicating. The only self-replicating thing thus far is life. Hence the Malthusian limit can be used to describe more than just food vs population.
In fact many societies hit their malthusian limit before actual starvation. A simple decrease in variety of food could be enough to start the population towards self-correction. Similarly people don't need to literally have no jobs or houses for the effects to be felt.
I don't get what the argument is anyways, I'm not saying there's not a population shrinkage happening.
Houses, fancy purses, and cars are not self-replicating. The only self-replicating thing thus far is life. Hence the Malthusian limit can be used to describe more than just food vs population.
In fact many societies hit their malthusian limit before actual starvation. A simple decrease in variety of food could be enough to start the population towards self-correction. Similarly people don't need to literally have no jobs or houses for the effects to be felt.
I don't get what the argument is anyways, I'm not saying there's not a population shrinkage happening.
Last edited: