China demographics thread.

[jli88]

Exactly. Each time the latest fertility or marriage stats are released and they are even lower than the last, the gov does absolutely nothing to raise alarm bells but instead goes into overdrive to convince people why it's not so bad lol. I really think they want a sub-500 million population.

Currently China makes up 17.5% of the humans (1.4bn/8.0bn). What would be interesting to know is given demographic projections of all countries, what will the percentage be in the year 2100. I mean, if China still has 17.5% or more of the humans, then everything is still alright innit?

That is already a historical low. Through out much of history, China's population was 25-33% of world population. And now, the ratio would most definitely decline, as @gadgetcool5 pointed out below.

Humans are the life blood of an economy, the most productive resource an economy can have, how can a country lose its share of the most productive resource so calmly is confusing.

The total births worldwide in 2023 was 134 million. Of those 9 million were in China, or 6.7% of the total. So yeah, China is headed for a spectacular fall, but the only caveat is that the Anglo World + Western Europe is also very low.

The main question for China is not whether it can maintain a large share of the world population in the future (it can't) but whether it can survive at all in the long run or will it eventually be overrun by mass immigration once the population crash becomes too acute. You already see countries like South Korea and Japan opening up for more foreigners. A secondary question is how fast or slow China's population decline will be. In a relative sense, if it can be slowed down somewhat, China will be able to keep its position among world nations for longer.

Yikes, that no good. I found this graph
View attachment 131395

It looks like China's population went off on different tangent altogether in 1949. What happened then to make population growth increase? Can we make same conditions again?

This is just a visual paradox. Our brain is used to thinking in linear quantities, its poor when it thinks of compounding, ratios etc.

Now look at this graph, closely, each and every single one of these countries has gained on China in terms of ratios, which means that they had a higher growth rate than China from 1900 onwards.

[Rough numbers below]

China went from being almost 20 times the size of Pakistan in 1900 to now currently being around 6 times the size of Pakistan.

It went from being around 10 times the size of Indonesia in 1900 to now around 5 times the size.

It went from being 5 times US in 1900 to now just below 4 times.

It went from being 1.33 times India (1900) to now being less than India.

China is losing market share of the most valuable resource on earth - people.

Attitudes are changing though, but too slowly. I have been talking about this issue now for a decade. Earlier people laughed me off, now atleast there is some consensus around the issue, but not too much that is being done.

 

[manqiangrexue]

Humans are the life blood of an economy, the most productive resource an economy can have, how can a country lose its share of the most productive resource so calmly is confusing.

1. It's not that confusing unless you're stupid and have very poor memory. It's been explained to you multiple times both on this account and your last account then you lost the arguments, shut up for a few weeks/months, then came back to say the same thing again as if nobody answered them yet. That behavior is confusing.

2. What's the problem with being calm? Does losing one's calm solve problems better or is there some CIA surprise bonus you're trying to get for online shills that can cause panick? Hint: the US budget ain't great this year so the surprise bonus isn't gonna be a wad of cash like you want but more like a $10 gift card to Dominos.

 

[jli88]

• "marginal cost of having a child is low" - the State provides free prenatal hospital care, free healthcare for children, free education, free sundries for children, guaranteed maternity leave with job at end for 1 year, pay grandparents extra state pension if they look after grandklds.
• "child per capita investment is low" - the State can lower taxes paid by the household depending on how many kids there are. If you got 3 kids, you pay no taxes of any kind period.
• payoff is rapid, age 14-18 - lower age of adulthood, allow children to start attending (free) university from 14 or gainful employment. Any income from children transferred to parents free of tax.
  
  
  This will cost the State an arm and a leg but depends if you think the demographic problem is a crisis or not.

The incentive structure for parents needs to be changed. Earlier people had kids because raising kids was not hard or expensive, and kids helped them in their old age. These days kids are literally just expense dumps, you can't expect them to help you in any way in the future when you are done, and raising them is a huge hit financially and to your career.

Build a system where raising more children makes financial sense for parents.

Also, change the anti-natalist culture that has sprung up. There's this huge culture where 2 kids are considered unfair to the first, specially in case of daughters. In fact 2 kids are really good, because kids grow up with someone, they have company, and a life long support system apart from parents.

Think of raising kids as the ultimate form of investment, because they are the future of your economy, technology, military - everything.

 

[tokenanalyst]

It may be that people are nothing more than a commodity for governments and the upper class, but again, what is lost in this debate is how advances in automation and artificial intelligence are going to affect jobs in the future, It understandable that It is difficult for most to see the danger in the long term, that is understandable, is like climate change, difficult for most to understand the danger they really are, but governments have to be careful when it comes to basically forcing people to get married and have many children, forcing an increase in the fertility rate. Because it is one thing to have a group of poor elderly people without jobs sitting around waiting for dead to come and quite another to have millions of desperate poor young people without the possibility of getting a job.​

 

[Xiongmao]

It may be that people are nothing more than a commodity for governments and the upper class, but again, what is lost in this debate is how advances in automation and artificial intelligence are going to affect jobs in the future, It understandable that It is difficult for most to see the danger in the long term, that is understandable, is like climate change, difficult for most to understand the danger they really are, but governments have to be careful when it comes to basically forcing people to get married and have many children, forcing an increase in the fertility rate. Because it is one thing to have a group of poor elderly people without jobs sitting around waiting for dead to come and quite another to have millions of desperate poor young people without the possibility of getting a job.​

I be thinking that if a society has a fertility rate of less than the replacement rate, then this is a most unnatural condition. There would be no life on this planet if this kind of thing was natural. So a harmonious society is in harmony to what, to Nature would by my claim. And that means your society needs to replenish itself, not diminish away.

 

[tokenanalyst]

I be thinking that if a society has a fertility rate of less than the replacement rate, then this is a most unnatural condition. There would be no life on this planet if this kind of thing was natural. So a harmonious society is in harmony to what, to Nature would by my claim. And that means your society needs to replenish itself, not diminish away.

I think people died really young in the past and all kind of slavery were very common, so a lot people didn't manage to have kids in the past. You can say that the quantity of people today reaching their 70s and 80s is unnatural. You can say that most children today reaching adulthood is unnatural. Most of the explosive population growth that humanity experience was probably due technological advancements and not natural selection. So I don't know what is the "natural condition"

Either way in modern times, global society has done a lot in the last few decades or so to make people to no have children, from chemicals to cultural shifts in the name of progress, it goes way beyond the one the child policy of China. So basically, to reach the "natural condition" the global society will have to REDO a lot of that, force a change in the modern global cultural paradigm and get rid of the chemicals and methods. That means that child positive policymakers will have to walk over the will of many people, reducate many people to accept the new paradigm shift.

Ok, we have reverse the paradigm, now people are having 3 children on average, now, what policies are needed to make sure that in the next few decades those 3 children have a good education with a decent paying job as a reward, in a era were artificial neurons can code much better than any human or build things faster/better than any human ever lived, drive anything safer than any human drivers, serve humans better than human themselves. Become luddites? Reject technological progress to keep people employ? IDK technological backwards countries usually get colonized or bully by technological superior ones no matter how many people they have. So a balance in necessary.

I know it may look like hype now and the current trend is probably is BUT the gap between the artificial and the real is being filled pretty fast, at least when it come to jobs tasks. So policymakers have to take into account that.

 

[Xiongmao]

I think people died really young in the past and all kind of slavery were very common, so a lot people didn't manage to have kids in the past. You can say that the quantity of people today reaching their 70s and 80s is unnatural. You can say that most children today reaching adulthood is unnatural. Most of the explosive population growth that humanity experience was probably due technological advancements and not natural selection. So I don't know what is the "natural condition"

Either way in modern times, global society has done a lot in the last few decades or so to make people to no have children, from chemicals to cultural shifts in the name of progress, it goes way beyond the one the child policy of China. So basically, to reach the "natural condition" the global society will have to REDO a lot of that, force a change in the modern global cultural paradigm and get rid of the chemicals and methods. That means that child positive policymakers will have to walk over the will of many people, reducate many people to accept the new paradigm shift.

Ok, we have reverse the paradigm, now people are having 3 children on average, now, what policies are needed to make sure that in the next few decades those 3 children have a good education with a decent paying job as a reward, in a era were artificial neurons can code much better than any human or build things faster/better than any human ever lived, drive anything safer than any human drivers, serve humans better than human themselves. Become luddites? Reject technological progress to keep people employ? IDK technological backwards countries usually get colonized or bully by technological superior ones no matter how many people they have. So a balance in necessary.

I know it may look like hype now and the current trend is probably is BUT the gap between the artificial and the real is being filled pretty fast, at least when it come to jobs tasks. So policymakers have to take into account that.

ok so I found this interesting website, a population calculator:

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

I plugged in China's numbers, so fertility rate of 1.16, and kept other parameters default. Found out that within 170 years, China's population will be the same as the current UK around 60m. Wtf? So I messed with the sex ratio of boys to girls, made it boy:girl of 33.33:66.66. I got 240m population in 170 years, which is 4 times greater than the first attempt.

So we just got to get 2 times more baby girls than baby boys. How we do this? Maybe you have the answer, probably involves high level genetics somehow.

 

[tokenanalyst]

ok so I found this interesting website, a population calculator:

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

I plugged in China's numbers, so fertility rate of 1.16, and kept other parameters default. Found out that within 170 years, China's population will be the same as the current UK around 60m. Wtf? So I messed with the sex ratio of boys to girls, made it boy:girl of 33.33:66.66. I got 240m population in 170 years, which is 4 times greater than the first attempt.

So we just got to get 2 times more baby girls than baby boys. How we do this? Maybe you have the answer, probably involves high level genetics somehow.

How do you know what will happen in 30 years? Much less in 170 years? How do you know that a paradigm shift won't happen in 10 or 20 years and women will start having 5-7 children again?
We all know why TFRs dropped like a stone since the 60s and it's not a mysterious virus, it's not microplastics, it's not chemicals that make frogs gay, it's not a mystery. They were the changes in the social paradigm and the technologies that occurred at that time. It was good for society in general but the world did sacrifices for that.

 

[ougoah]

You're all ignoring the coming balance between increasing automation and decreasing consumption. Global economy must trend towards decreasing human consumption or at least making effort to improve its sustainability.

China sees this trend outside of itself even if it wishes to maintain the previous model for a decade longer. This is why we see fairly substantial effort from CPC to realign Chinese industry and societal structure. Reducing population isn't a bad thing but it cannot be too dramatic a shift either. Lifting one child policy was done exactly at the right time. We're moving to a world that doesn't need the same level of individual consumption. It also cannot seem to afford it. Inventing trillions of money units out of thin air for excessive consumption is over for the US and the writing was on the wall since the 1970s but never came to manifest until now.

China cannot rely on the same old methods toward increasing prosperity. It recognises that a smaller, more resourced population is better to tackle the new world. Higher standards, higher knowledge and education, higher expectations. All these things will improve Chinese society for its next step of transformation. However impressive China has been over the past few decades, it is still below western nations in overall individual resourcing and wealth. It should not be the case and that cannot be achieved with the mindset of sticking with the same old business as usual models.

Recognising this has been the case for well over a decade for the CPC in my opinion. They've also addressed a few future industries and nurtured them. They could do better but what can you expect from people brought up in 1960s to 1980s China. I'd say a well done to them and as we shift to younger generations coming to roles of influence, this whole demographic issue isn't so much one of population trends but cultural identity. If you want to worry about demographics, worry more about the cultures being encouraged with young people.

I would suggest a rule of thumb (if forced to find a figure) of minimum Chinese population to maintain, out of recognising human nature, the nature of competition in humanity's past and so on, that the number be kept above the total population of Europe and North America. Most of these populations are going to be increasingly migrant derived but lets assume their culture maintain ethno-cultural enmity against China. This means a population roughly above 800M. Over time as Chinese individual become more productive than those counterparts (as it should since Chinese generally have higher intelligence and better work ethic at the moment! and has been ahead of the west for most of human history) then it's acceptable to reduce this ratio to a 1:1.5 or so. The west has used a 1:5 ratio in the past to rule the world. So it is all intelligence and the support of the society's resources as a whole.

 

[Randomuser]

You're all ignoring the coming balance between increasing automation and decreasing consumption. Global economy must trend towards decreasing human consumption or at least making effort to improve its sustainability.

China sees this trend outside of itself even if it wishes to maintain the previous model for a decade longer. This is why we see fairly substantial effort from CPC to realign Chinese industry and societal structure. Reducing population isn't a bad thing but it cannot be too dramatic a shift either. Lifting one child policy was done exactly at the right time. We're moving to a world that doesn't need the same level of individual consumption. It also cannot seem to afford it. Inventing trillions of money units out of thin air for excessive consumption is over for the US and the writing was on the wall since the 1970s but never came to manifest until now.

China cannot rely on the same old methods toward increasing prosperity. It recognises that a smaller, more resourced population is better to tackle the new world. Higher standards, higher knowledge and education, higher expectations. All these things will improve Chinese society for its next step of transformation. However impressive China has been over the past few decades, it is still below western nations in overall individual resourcing and wealth. It should not be the case and that cannot be achieved with the mindset of sticking with the same old business as usual models.

Recognising this has been the case for well over a decade for the CPC in my opinion. They've also addressed a few future industries and nurtured them. They could do better but what can you expect from people brought up in 1960s to 1980s China. I'd say a well done to them and as we shift to younger generations coming to roles of influence, this whole demographic issue isn't so much one of population trends but cultural identity. If you want to worry about demographics, worry more about the cultures being encouraged with young people.

I would suggest a rule of thumb (if forced to find a figure) of minimum Chinese population to maintain, out of recognising human nature, the nature of competition in humanity's past and so on, that the number be kept above the total population of Europe and North America. Most of these populations are going to be increasingly migrant derived but lets assume their culture maintain ethno-cultural enmity against China. This means a population roughly above 800M. Over time as Chinese individual become more productive than those counterparts (as it should since Chinese generally have higher intelligence and better work ethic at the moment! and has been ahead of the west for most of human history) then it's acceptable to reduce this ratio to a 1:1.5 or so. The west has used a 1:5 ratio in the past to rule the world. So it is all intelligence and the support of the society's resources as a whole.

Probably one of those things that people will criticize China on but then in the long run it turns out they were right.

People also criticized China on building the dam, having its own internet space, restricting power of companies, focusing on manufacturing, not taking the bait from US provocations etc. Then China was proven right in the end. Dunno how they do this but it seems they can see past a lot of western illusions for some reason while guys like the USSR couldn't.

I guess time will tell. But then again maybe its pointless because WW3 happens and then all the assumptions/projections all go up in smoke and the situation completely changes.