China demographics thread.

[august1]

For the sake of articulating a maximalist pro-natalist approach, it would require a combination of strong media influence, economic incentives for family cultivation and tax penalties on unpaired/unmarried people without kids, combating anti-natalist ideology, as well as examining other similar/related cultures with higher birth rates for policy consultation and development (in China's case Vietnam and North Korea). Basically one would need to approach things as if it were a Cold War style of prolonged socioeconomic and ideological conflict in a manner of speaking (hypothetically).

I'm in China, and I don't currently see even a hint of any of these ideas being implemented. I can't even think of a Chinese TV show or movie in recent memory to feature a happy family with two or more children. The last one I can think of is 家有儿女 from nearly 20 years ago. Anti-natalist sentiment is also expressed freely on Chinese social media and I don't see any hint of a crackdown on it. In addition to anti-natalism, all kinds of other "制造焦虑" ideology surrounding marriage, family, and child-rearing are freely expressed in Chinese social media with thousands of upvotes and sympathetic replies, such as the idea that it's deeply cruel to the first child (especially if it's a daughter) to have more than one child or the idea that having two sons means a lifetime of financial woe and misery. In modern China, I feel like the anxieties around having children are rapidly evolving into something that people outside of East China can't even begin to comprehend. People are worried about stuff that wouldn't even enter the minds of Joe Blow from Wisconsin let alone Mohammed Ali from Egypt.

Ultimately what I'm getting at is that slowing down, let alone halting or reversing, decreasing birth rates is hard enough, as many governments around the world can attest to, but doing so in modern China presents uniquely difficult challenges that I don't think can be overcome in the near feature at all.

 

[coolgod]

I'm in China, and I don't currently see even a hint of any of these ideas being implemented. I can't even think of a Chinese TV show or movie in recent memory to feature a happy family with two or more children. The last one I can think of is 家有儿女 from nearly 20 years ago. Anti-natalist sentiment is also expressed freely on Chinese social media and I don't see any hint of a crackdown on it. In addition to anti-natalism, all kinds of other "制造焦虑" ideology surrounding marriage, family, and child-rearing are freely expressed in Chinese social media with thousands of upvotes and sympathetic replies, such as the idea that it's deeply cruel to the first child (especially if it's a daughter) to have more than one child or the idea that having two sons means a lifetime of financial woe and misery. In modern China, I feel like the anxieties around having children are rapidly evolving into something that people outside of East China can't even begin to comprehend. People are worried about stuff that wouldn't even enter the minds of Joe Blow from Wisconsin let alone Mohammed Ali from Egypt.

Ultimately what I'm getting at is that slowing down, let alone halting or reversing, decreasing birth rates is hard enough, as many governments around the world can attest to, but doing so in modern China presents uniquely difficult challenges that I don't think can be overcome in the near feature at all.

This is why I advocate in addition to the other great ideas mentioned in the thread, China must also promote policies that favour foreign brides, this latent demand of millions of mothers to be can help China through this demographics transition.

 

[Moonscape]

How many people in this thread actually have kids?

I suspect most do not.

Once you have a kid, you'll know -- they are lovely but exhausting. Additional children have very rapidly diminishing marginal returns. Having one kid is enough for some couples. Having two kids is enough for most. There's very few practical reasons to have more.

Incidentally, clickbait title aside, this type of technology may be part of the solution:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1802896251605622879

Starpery’s road map includes developing robots capable of household chores, helping people with disabilities and providing aged care. By 2025, the company aims to launch its first “smart service robot”, capable of more complex services for people with disabilities. By 2030, these robots could be protecting people from hazardous jobs, according to the company’s plan.

To achieve this level of development, there are two main challenges: battery capacity and artificial muscles, Lee said.

Firstly, unlike electric vehicles, humanoid robots lack space for large batteries, so for them to operate independently the energy density of batteries must improve. Secondly, current engines lack the flexibility of human muscles, which can exert force over a wide range and can be both hard and soft, fitting closely to the skin, according to Lee.

Currently, to ensure realism the dolls can often weigh up to 40kg (88lbs), which is too heavy for the motor and poses a risk of falling or hurting the user.

“Therefore in the first stage, we focused on reducing the weight through improvements in materials and production processes,” Lee said. By July 2023, their 172cm-tall doll weighed just 29kg.

Lee said robots that could do household chores was a societal vision but it remained a long time away. Robotics companies could use servo motors to achieve certain functions, but considering stability and cost, commercialisation was still in the distance.

“The entire industry will need about 10 years to achieve the goal,” he said.

Robotic nannies that can handle at least part of the drudgery of child-raising without adding yet another recurring household expense may convince some families to go from 1 to 2 or 2 to 3.

 

[Index]

China has enough arable land for 1.4 billion people (probably 1.5+ billion with GMO crops). The goal should have been to maintain population at a stable level, not create an inverse pyramid structure that would almost certainly result in an economic crisis in the coming decades.

Defenders of the one-child policy shouldn't be arguing a straw man. Nobody is saying China shouldn't have tried to address over population. But going down to one-child is mathematically guaranteed to create an inverse population pyramid and crisis.

But they have never forced anyone to have just 1 child. They only decided they would provide the full range of welfare (free schooling, child benefits) for 1 child per household. During no point since the 1980s to now did China go below 1 child on average. Anyone interested in having more children would just have to pay more, which given services affordability in China, is not that much more.

Also when China decided to increase benefits but limit it to 1 child per household, it took some 20 years of 3-4 children on average until a drop was noticed. So clearly the average person didn't care much, and only later with increased living standards did people start caring, or perhaps they would have cared even without the government recommendation, the way people did in other developed countries?

China pretty much followed the same fertility curve as comparable living standard economies, I.e. somewhere between South and Eastern Europe.

 

[Randomuser]

This is India's current birth rate. A country that isn't even close to developed status is already below replacement rate. They had no one child policy or whatever to curb the population and in fact people were worrying they breed too much. Now they already are slightly below replacement rate overall.

This is a worldwide trend in general. Thinking it's a China only problem is a westoid talking point spouted by people like Peter Zeihan.

The question is many countries suffer from this issue including the west so what can be done about it? No one has an answer yet but it would be great if China is the first to figure it out.

 

[coolgod]

But they have never forced anyone to have just 1 child. They only decided they would provide the full range of welfare (free schooling, child benefits) for 1 child per household. During no point since the 1980s to now did China go below 1 child on average. Anyone interested in having more children would just have to pay more, which given services affordability in China, is not that much more.

Also when China decided to increase benefits but limit it to 1 child per household, it took some 20 years of 3-4 children on average until a drop was noticed. So clearly the average person didn't care much, and only later with increased living standards did people start caring, or perhaps they would have cared even without the government recommendation, the way people did in other developed countries?

China pretty much followed the same fertility curve as comparable living standard economies, I.e. somewhere between South and Eastern Europe.

One Child policy was much more than what you wrote, officially it's just the lack of benefits and extra fees. In practise if you wanted some reputable career you had to have only one child.

 

[august1]

This is why I advocate in addition to the other great ideas mentioned in the thread, China must also promote policies that favour foreign brides, this latent demand of millions of mothers to be can help China through this demographics transition.

Where do you propose these foreign brides come from? SEA, south Asian, and some African women may be willing to come but only rural Chinese men are interested in them. If you open the open the floodgates of immigration, I guarantee you Chinese cities will be swamped with foreign men instead.

 

[tygyg1111]

Where do you propose these foreign brides come from? SEA, south Asian, and some African women may be willing to come but only rural Chinese men are interested in them. If you open the open the floodgates of immigration, I guarantee you Chinese cities will be swamped with foreign men instead.

You can combine this with benefits for foreign spouses that primarily favor foreign females, e.g. maternity benefits for non-Chinese passport holders. I would add eastern european women as well, however I agree that only a minority of men / men from disadvantaged backgrounds would be interested.

In the medium term, I still believe China is tacitly aiming for a lower population (not drastically lower), which would relieve a great deal of the housing, educational and vocational issues being experienced today, to coincide with a fully developed domestic tech stack. A decrease in social competition amongst children (from a parents perspective), and an availability of more higher paying jobs (domestic tech as the foundation), would settle closer to a natural equilibrium point and theoretically improve fertility in accordance with available resources.

 

[coolgod]

Where do you propose these foreign brides come from? SEA, south Asian, and some African women may be willing to come but only rural Chinese men are interested in them. If you open the open the floodgates of immigration, I guarantee you Chinese cities will be swamped with foreign men instead.

You missed several regions, I'm much more optimistic than you. If there are foreign brides (the expat kind) in Japan and South Korea, there can also be the same in China.

Even if these extra Chinese men are located in the rural regions, what's wrong with that? Are you worried that the rural lifestyle doesn't appeal to foreign brides or do you think China should give up on its rural revitalization program?

Like I previously stated, I advocate for sexual selective immigration which greatly rewards marriage age single female applicants.

 

[august1]

If there are foreign brides (the expat kind) in Japan and South Korea, there can also be the same in China.

Those foreign brides have done nothing to slow down S Korea and Japan's birth rate implosion despite making up a far far greater percentage of the population than foreign brides in China.

Even if these extra Chinese men are located in the rural regions, what's wrong with that? Are you worried that the rural lifestyle doesn't appeal to foreign brides or do you think China should give up on its rural revitalization program?

It matters because China is still rapidly urbanizing. A shrinking rural population means more Chinese men who won't accept brides from very poor countries.

Like I previously stated, I advocate for sexual selective immigration which greatly rewards marriage age single female applicants.

Sex selective immigration would be a diplomatic nightmare and tarnish China's image in the world.