China demographics thread.

[Moonscape]

Most people who don't want any kids don't have them because having kids lowers the quality of their life. Kids just take all of their free time for like 5+ years and are an emotional burden and stress for another 10 or more. Those are a huge part of the population. Tens of percent of the new generations, easily.

Some people who have one kid also think like that now that they had experience with one kid and they don't want another.

But there is a small subset of people who have one kid and who would perhaps have another if they had housing for a bigger family, money for education and so on.

Yeah this. It's really hard to bribe people into having kids, because the economics of not having (more than 1 or 2) kids is so powerful, no government can afford to bribe people out of this mess.

As an example, let's take a look at what I think is close to a best-case TFR for a modern industrialized society:

Start with 100 couples

20% of them won't get married. The women might have waited too long, the men might be too financially incapable or too short/unattractive, etc. The latter is not necessarily a bad thing--you don't necessarily want the bottom of the gene pool to reproduce. I don't think any government can realistically decrease this number, especially not without affecting the quality of the population.

80 couples left

10% of the couples won't have kids. Mostly due to health reasons/waited too long before trying. A minority probably bought into the DINK propaganda. Again, I don't think any government can realistically decrease this number, since it's honestly pretty low.

72 couples left

30% of the couples who have kids stop after having 1 kid. Either 1 is too much to handle, or health reasons. This is where government assistance might make a small difference.

50% of the couples who have kids stop after having 2 kids. This is the realistic maximum for most couples because it becomes exponentially more difficult to raise children when you don't have at least 1 parent per child.

10% of the couples who have kids have 3 kids.

10% of the couples who have kids have 4 kids. This is probably a bit high. It's probably more like 5% of families have 4 or more.

Total TFR for the above example would be (0.3*72+0.5*2*72+0.1*3*72+0.1*4*72)/100 = 1.44. Well below replacement, yet it's hard to see how this can be increased to replacement.

Even something really drastic, like somehow getting half of 1-child families to have a second kid, and half of 2-child families to have a 3rd kid, still isn't enough for replacement: (0.15*72+0.4*2*72+0.35*3*72+0.1*4*72)/100 = 1.73

Like you'll have to coerce 90% of the population into getting married, get all married couples to have kids, and have everyone have at least 2 kids and a significant portion to have 3 kids to get to 2.1:

Like this gets to 2.1:
100 couples
only 10% don't get married
95% of married couples have kids (86 couples with kids)
10% of the married couples with kids have 1 kid
50% of the married couples with kids have 2 kids
25% of the married couples with kids have 3 kids
15% of the married couples with kids have 4 kids

(0.1*86+0.5*2*86+0.25*3*86+0.15*4*86)/100=2.11

I don't see how in hell that is possible with any amount of government support that can be realistically provided


Perhaps the best solution would be to increase lifespans dramatically instead of trying to get people to have more children when modern parents are heavily disincentivized from having more than 2

 

[Eventine]

A couple of comments on statistics.

First, it should be self-evident that the % of men who reproduces is not that important. What's important is the % of women. Historically, as now, sexual selection fell heavier on men. 60% of men can mate with 90% of the women to produce the next generation, and in most historical societies, that's what happened - elite men had several partners, or up to hundreds for royalty, while slave men had nothing.

Second, it is absurd to say that 20% should be a target unmarried rate for women. Do you know how many women 25 to 29 years old in China as recent as 1982 were married? 95% of them. That's not a result of Communism - it was the average historically. The overwhelming majority of women were married by the time they were 30. The remainder were usually split between women with severe mental or physical problems, or extremely wealth women who could get away with it.

If we assume 95% of women are married, then the number of children required to reach 2.1 TFR becomes a lot more reasonable, and you'd just need the amount of children per family to shift slightly towards 2-3, for fertility to be replacement. That's not a very difficult task with the right incentives.

Consequently, the main problem with modern Chinese - and East Asian in general - society is the collapse in marriage rates. Over 50% of 25 to 29 year old in modern China are not married. For 30 to 39, that number is 28%. Even if we assume a male to female ratio of 2:1 in staying single, as has been shown in certain rural samples, that still equates to 17% of women 25 to 29 not being married, which is a vastly higher number than the historical 5%.

Indeed, this phenomenon happened recently, as just 15 years old, the numbers were not nearly as high, and that was also seen in China's TFR, which was in the range of 1.5 to 1.8 through most of 2010 to 2020.

I've said it before and I'll say it again - forget the amount of children per woman, this collapse in marriage rate is what the Chinese government should be focusing on if they want to make progress on the problem.

 

[BoraTas]

True, but we should remember the European population made up just 5-10% of humanity historically until they started colonizing other continents during the Age of Colonialism. China’s population was 20-30% of humanity for thousands of years and even during the great European population explosion, it was still >25%.

China has always been a demographic power house; but now the rest of the world will crush it and the rest of East Asia into the ashes of history simply because East Asians refuse to get married & have children. Because they’d rather work themselves to death for a second apartment or go on travel vacations. It’d be comical if it weren’t tragic.

Any way, at current rates, Africans and Indians will inherit the world and in a hundred years, East Asian power will be but a memory.

That is way too melodramatic. In the pre-industrial era it was impossible for most locations to have high concentrations of people. Africa, Americas, Australia and vast portions of Asia and Europe were practically unpopulated. The share of ethnic Europeans too will go a lot below their historic average of 5-10%. Shares of peoples descended from high-population cultures of the pre-industrial era will never go back to their historical averages. This holds true even for India.

 

[jli88]

Making people more productive and replacing people are the same. Making 5 people as productive as 10 people is the same as replacing 5 people. "Completely replacing people" means a society or industry in which there are no people but only robots; that's not even a relevant discussion.

Agreed, I intend to say the same thing, people will become more productive. However, people will still be needed. And the 5 people who are "replaced" will now have the opportunity to do something better or something else.

In 1800s China, most people were engaged in agriculture, current technology and mechanization has enabled China to produce more with a fraction of people that were once required. This doesn't mean that the overall population requirement has gone down, because new industries, new avenues have opened up.

Similarly, with increase in productivity, the other people will go on to do different things.

My comments are addressed to people who believe that current AI will completely replace humans in all jobs and industries, which is nonsense.

These are not those times anymore. There are too many examples of countries with bigger populations but weaker national power to even point out. On top of that, China's power is growing and is much stronger than when it was at its peak workforce population. Therefore, the correlation between population and national power is basically already gone.

Agreed, it is not a perfect correlation, however there is definitely a correlation, and that correlation is growing. The big trend for the last 30 years has been developing countries catching up to previous industrialized countries. South Korea, Gulf Countries have already covered the gap, many are progressing. Except the US, all old (pre-1950) industrialized countries have had their share of production/economy decline.

They don't need to be different from what happened throughout history because there are many examples of historic innovation that reduced the need for human labor.

Agreed, my comments are meant to argue against people who think that current tech will fundamentally replace and make people redundant.

As past revolutions have shown, the need for human labor for producing the same stuff decreases, however humans just move on to different things, create whole industries, and in that sense human resource (both quantity and quality) play a fundamental role in future economy.

Because it goes with all established historical technological development. You have repeatedly failed to establish the opposite so the underlying assumption of your question is incorrect rendering the entire question moot.

This is not addressed to you. We are on the same page in terms of how this phase will play out, this is addressed to people who believe that AI will fundamentally replace people in all aspects of production.

Japan bet its prosperity on following the US and got butchered by its master when it became too strong. It has nothing to do with its automation or lack of.

All of Japan's ills can't be placed only on the US.

Issues that have nothing to do with US:

1. Japan has failed in every emerging technology, in some of which it even had early lead. US is not the reason why Japanese firms are so conservative. US is not the reason why Japan is atrocious in even basic software.
2. Similarly US is not the reason why Japan is nowhere in AI, drones, modern robotics (not the traditional industrial robots, I mean AMRs, humanoids, smart vacuum cleaners etc.) solar panels etc.
3. Even the Japanese admit today that skewed demographics plays a role in them falling behind in emerging technologies, because the old simply don't want to change. This is the reason why floppy disks are still used in Japan today! When half of your population is above 48.5, the market dynamics favor the old and the conservative.

Issues where US was important:

1. US did impede Japanese automakers, semiconductors, and aerospace manufacturing.
2. However, it was not the death blow. It was mostly about sourcing and producing in US so that they don't have to import any more.
3. US was also able to pressure Japan because Japan didn't have what China has, a market of 1.4 billion people. If Japan had that domestic market, it would have not pressured. And that is what I want China to retain. A huge domestic market, workforce, and human population.

No, it's already confirmed that technology and innovation reduce the need for human labor. Your question is irrelevent again. You couldn't force people to have kids anyway in the current situation. As automation rises and more is produced per person, leading to an increase in per capita resources and quality of life, people feeling thier lives get easier will have (more) kids. You can't put the cart before the horse. China has a huge population and thus time cushion for that to happen.

We are currently producing and consuming the most we have ever had in human history (per human). However, the fertility rate has only gone down. So, per capita consumption or production have nothing (in fact the correlation is negative) with fertility.

China's huge population is already producing 9 million children, with a fertility rate that is approaching 1. 9 million people, with even an 80 year life expectancy is just 720 million people. So based on today's births, the future is already where Chinese population will halve. However, the fertility rate is going to make every successive generation halve further.

Europeans and their descendants (Americas) in 1950 made up 1/3 of all humans, higher than the percentage of China historically.

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Chinese population in 1950 was 550M vs. 454M in the G7 west (148M US, 84M JPN, 71M GER, 50M UK, 46M ITA, 41M FRC, 14M CND). There's still non-G7 west like Denmark, Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Turkey, Norway, etc. And then there's nonwestern whites like Soviets.

Chinese population became exceptionally large later on in the 60's and 70's. It did not start exceptionally large. Today China is almost 2x the entire G7 combined (1400M vs. 780M).

You are using the most optimistic projection of European (or white) population, when they had incredible growth from 1700 to 1900 owing to industrial revolution, better medical/health facilities, and hugely expanded resources availability in Americas.

Chinese population was already at its lowest historically in 1950s, it kept losing its share of global population, which means that it was growing lower than world average.

 

[jli88]

Converted Japan the third largest manufacturer in the world and technological power house that with 1.5% of the human population output more than 7% of the goods.

Japan is totally reliant on its traditional industries. It has been losing market share in everything, and its share of global production is also coming down every year. Japanese themselves today recognize that their skewed demographics disincentivizes innovation.

To top that, even the Japan of today can't survive alone. It has to survive in the US-led world. It is globally competitive in only some select industries. That's a luxury that China doesn't have.

I have never said give up, I said if things get too bad governments will basically had to walk over people rights to reverse the paradigms and control the technologies responsible for the current drop in fertility rates or even using artificial means to force the "production" of more children if thing get too bad, doing things that usually for some reason people don't want to talk about in this debate. Is like climate change the solution if things get too bad is in plain sight but is so radical that people avoid to even talk about it because involve more than completed cutting fossil fuels which is bad enough. Now if governments manage to reverse the fertility rate beyond replacement levels and technological unemployment become much severe now instead of having a lot of angry old folks you will have a lot of angry you people.

A good option would be to give people positive incentives to have more children to keep the population size in check but at the same time monitoring how technology induced unemployment is going.

Cool then. I think all of us want China to compete and thrive in its competition with the entire West (US + Europe + 5 eyes + Japan/SoKo).

I am just saying it is essential for China to have a much larger population for this competition. This provides a huge domestic market, workforce, skilled labor etc.

Huawei was only able to survive because it has the huge Chinese domestic market to rely on.

 

[manqiangrexue]

Agreed, I intend to say the same thing, people will become more productive. However, people will still be needed. And the 5 people who are "replaced" will now have the opportunity to do something better or something else.

I don't think you understand what's happening. Nobody's asking you to choose between more people and less people. The fact is that due to the competitive environment, there is going to be less people. The question is how big of a problem that will be.

In 1800s China, most people were engaged in agriculture, current technology and mechanization has enabled China to produce more with a fraction of people that were once required. This doesn't mean that the overall population requirement has gone down, because new industries, new avenues have opened up.

As a requirement, they have gone down. However, the population increased anyway for reasons unrelated to requirement. Correlation is not causation.

Similarly, with increase in productivity, the other people will go on to do different things.

Ideally, but if we had the ideal situation, we would not be having this conversation. The conversation is what to do with what we have; it is rooted in reality, not an imaginary supposition of whether we'd like to have more or less people.

My comments are addressed to people who believe that current AI will completely replace humans in all jobs and industries, which is nonsense.

All?? Did anybody say that? Because that's stupid. I didn't read everything here but I have a feeling that they were saying it would reduce the number of humans needed and you moved the goalpost to "all."

Agreed, it is not a perfect correlation, however there is definitely a correlation, and that correlation is growing. The big trend for the last 30 years has been developing countries catching up to previous industrialized countries. South Korea, Gulf Countries have already covered the gap, many are progressing. Except the US, all old (pre-1950) industrialized countries have had their share of production/economy decline.

No, it is a diminishing correlation and it will continue to diminish with increasing technology. With no technology, manpower is the deciding factor. Technology is a force multiplier; the greater it develops the more it overtakes manpower in weight.

Before the British invented guns, if they tried to colonize India, they'd probably all be killed in a mob vs 1 fashion. After the technology of guns, India's population could not defend itself against far far fewer British colonizers. With the advent of nuclear weapons, a dude in a chair can press a button and wipe out hundreds of millions.

As technology progresses human numbers become less and less determinant.

Agreed, my comments are meant to argue against people who think that current tech will fundamentally replace and make people redundant.

Once again, I would tend to believe that unless something incredibly stupid was said to you, that you are mischaracterizing the argument that technology reduces the need for people into an argument that technology means no people are needed at all.

As past revolutions have shown, the need for human labor for producing the same stuff decreases, however humans just move on to different things, create whole industries, and in that sense human resource (both quantity and quality) play a fundamental role in future economy.

Ideally, but irrelevent if it is not your choice whether the population expands or contracts.

All of Japan's ills can't be placed only on the US.

Issues that have nothing to do with US:

1. Japan has failed in every emerging technology, in some of which it even had early lead. US is not the reason why Japanese firms are so conservative. US is not the reason why Japan is atrocious in even basic software.
2. Similarly US is not the reason why Japan is nowhere in AI, drones, modern robotics (not the traditional industrial robots, I mean AMRs, humanoids, smart vacuum cleaners etc.) solar panels etc.
3. Even the Japanese admit today that skewed demographics plays a role in them falling behind in emerging technologies, because the old simply don't want to change. This is the reason why floppy disks are still used in Japan today! When half of your population is above 48.5, the market dynamics favor the old and the conservative.

Life loses vigor when you lose a world war and get colonized.

Issues where US was important:

1. US did impede Japanese automakers, semiconductors, and aerospace manufacturing.
2. However, it was not the death blow. It was mostly about sourcing and producing in US so that they don't have to import any more.
3. US was also able to pressure Japan because Japan didn't have what China has, a market of 1.4 billion people. If Japan had that domestic market, it would have not pressured. And that is what I want China to retain. A huge domestic market, workforce, and human population.

K

We are currently producing and consuming the most we have ever had in human history (per human). However, the fertility rate has only gone down. So, per capita consumption or production have nothing (in fact the correlation is negative) with fertility.

How do you consume it if you worked 996 to earn it? Liesure time time is an important aspect of quality of life as well as material goods.

China's huge population is already producing 9 million children, with a fertility rate that is approaching 1. 9 million people, with even an 80 year life expectancy is just 720 million people. So based on today's births, the future is already where Chinese population will halve. However, the fertility rate is going to make every successive generation halve further.

Until there's 1 person left and s/he dies, right? LOL Look at Niger's fertility rate of 7; that means eventually, the whole world will be the vast majority them, right? Why would you be so stupid as to extend trends indefinitely? Fear-mongering or lack of education?

 

[tankphobia]

I don't know why pro-natalism policy keeps being brought up like it will help, since it has been tried all over the world and I don't see a single example working.

WW2 and the subsequent allowance of women participation in the workforce is the core reason why birth rates have dropped. You want higher birthrates? Do as conservative countries do, restrict women education, ban abortion, limit women career choices, the state can even go further and ban social media for under 25s so they can't even get entertainment unless it's with people in person. Hard policy will do more than any propaganda campaign can much quicker. Obviously China will not implement that unless it is truly desperate.

 

[Quan8410]

China is a manufacturing power house. Just manufacture people in lab. They already dit it some years back but the scientist was detained. Now we need he back to scale the tecnology. No more with these nonsense policies.

 

[Randomuser]

I don't know why pro-natalism policy keeps being brought up like it will help, since it has been tried all over the world and I don't see a single example working.

WW2 and the subsequent allowance of women participation in the workforce is the core reason why birth rates have dropped. You want higher birthrates? Do as conservative countries do, restrict women education, ban abortion, limit women career choices, the state can even go further and ban social media for under 25s so they can't even get entertainment unless it's with people in person. Hard policy will do more than any propaganda campaign can much quicker. Obviously China will not implement that unless it is truly desperate.

That's just not going to happen in today's capitalistic world. Governments are not gonna let half of their population be not working. They need to make sure every single person is contributing to the economy.

That's why I find it funny how they try so hard to portray this as a China only problem when it's a global one they themselves have not really made any progress in solving. It's a problem no one has found a good solution to. Funny enough if China managed to resolve it without immigrants or whatever, the west still wouldn't give it credit even though they never made a real attempt at solving it themselves.

 

[Eventine]

I don't know why pro-natalism policy keeps being brought up like it will help, since it has been tried all over the world and I don't see a single example working.

WW2 and the subsequent allowance of women participation in the workforce is the core reason why birth rates have dropped. You want higher birthrates? Do as conservative countries do, restrict women education, ban abortion, limit women career choices, the state can even go further and ban social media for under 25s so they can't even get entertainment unless it's with people in person. Hard policy will do more than any propaganda campaign can much quicker. Obviously China will not implement that unless it is truly desperate.

The danger is that it never gets desperate until it's too late. Like in South Korea, where the government is definitely desperate, but can't dig itself out of the hole.

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

The best case scenario the government is putting forward is returning TFR to 1 by 2030, because South Korean TFR is currently 0.7.

Subsidizing children makes sense... Until you consider that 87.4 percent of 25-29 year olds and 56.3 percent of 30-34 year olds identify as single in South Korea.

If more than half of your population is single at 35, it doesn't matter how much you subsidize child birth! You're not escaping the trap because it would take FIVE CHILDREN PER FAMILY to counter more than half of your population not reproducing just to reach replacement.

Virtually nobody is going to want to have five children, even with subsidies. That's the sort of life-style that gives modern men and women nightmares.

China needs to arrest this development before it gets this bad, and the most important cultural change is this extreme individualism imported from the West. All social media, educational institutions, local party organizations, etc. need to be mobilized against the single life-style that is being sold to young women and men right now.