China demographics thread.

[FairAndUnbiased]

automation in manufacturing doesn't solve manufacturing, it only solves high volume manufacturing.

there's actually still a shit ton of manufacturing that is manual and requires human engineers because it is low volume high complexity stuff, more like a construction project than manufacturing. its not worth automating because the complexity is too high and the volume is too low. simple example is shipbuilding, another is scientific and medical instruments. For example there is simply no demand for 1 million MRI machines so its not worth automating, it is so complicated that it is expensive to automate.

so you still need people for the highest value manufacturing.

 

[manqiangrexue]

I don't know how to put this exactly, but why are we talking about people being replaced by robots like it's a great thing? A world where robots have replaced most humans, won't be fun for humans - whether they're Chinese, Indian, or American. It's sheer dystopian to talk about this outcome like it's desirable. Who cares if "robot China" is strong? Are you a robot? If not, why do you wish China's population to be replaced by robots?

The basis of any nation is humans. If a nation isn't doing well supporting its humans, then it is failing its job, regardless of how wealthy, powerful, or advanced it becomes. Robots should not be replacing people; they should not be destroying humanity's basis for sustaining itself. Continued, successful human reproduction should always be the highest goal of a human community, for without it, the community's extinction is just a matter of time. It may not be possible to predict the future, but it is certainly possible to say when a vision for the future is just wrong.

That's either backwards thinking (maybe you prefer to live like the Amish) or it's a total misunderstanding of automation. Automation exists to solve human problems and make labor easier, so that humans physical labor can be replaced and people allocated to educated, high paying sophisticated labor. It allows a massive increase in the production of wealth per capita. It's there to save you from a declining population; it's not causing the decline. Right now your problem is that you want other people to have kids and they don't want to. Machines ameliorate one aspect of a declining population which is labor shortage. Thank them for that; don't blame them for causing a problem they didn't cause.

Thanks for this table, a good visual tool for explanation.

And very useful, almost as useful as a chart made in 1924 on what the population would look like in 2024.

People panic because people want things to change, once they change the panic would go. Panic is a reaction to the current situation.

Panic is never good for anything. As I said, there are useful reactions, which I outlined, and there are useless reactions, which is panic. If you want something to change, the only way is to stop panicking, calm down, and think about the solution.

And yes, while the trend might change in the next 75 years, it might also not change, or even be worse.

Which is why the table is useless.

These numbers are being produced to help people understand why things need to change, and what will happen if they don't. Why sustained TFR of 1 can simply not be tolerated.

Anybody who cares about the implications for the country would have already have had kids. The people who don't want kids don't care if the whole country disappears; they just want to live easy lives while they're young.

Israel: 2.9

All done by the useless religious faction that have no jobs but just take tax money to pop out more kids like them.

Denmark: 1.7

Absolutely no stress, no competition with anyone.

United States: 1.7

City slickers with high income = no kids. Rednecks, poor minorities known for crime and drug use = 4-6 kids

And yes, 1.7 is a much higher TFR compared to China's 1. 70% Higher. And just look at the impact in @Jiang ZeminFanboy post above of 1.7 vs 1.

Even getting to 1.7 would be better.

But it's irrelvent what you want the number to be. How do you get there?

Number of jobs are not fixed. They are dependent on economy, which is dependent on consumption by people. Number of Jobs available or required is a useless metric. What is better is unemployment rate, or no. of jobs available per 100 people.

Not true. Automation through out history has nothing to do with overall job creation, because people just find different stuff to do.

At one time > 90% people were engaged in agriculture. Today, less than 10% people (in modern) countries can produce much more grain and feed the entire population. Still no net job decrease, people just shifted to something else.

Today even if all current manufacturing jobs are destroyed, humanity will just find something else to do.

That's just arguing that an increasing population isn't a problem, which nobody thinks is China's issue now.

No it is not. We are already saying that given TFR trends are this and this, the population projection is this. PLEASE bring policy measures or whatever to change the TFR trends.

Been done to death. There's no new talking points. If you have new suggestions, bring them. Nobody needs to hear how much of a problem it is; we'll do our best to solve it regardless of whether it is a large or small problem.

It is very simple maths to predict demographics. The assumption is about TFR trends, immigration/emigration trends, life expectancy etc. And almost every demographer who has been predicting Chinese births/TFR trends over the last decade has been wrong. But for the worse. Births and TFR was lower than forecasted. And these people are already predicting Chinese population of some 500-700 million by 2100.

You said it's very simple, then you said almost everyone got it wrong. If you included immigration and life expectancy, it's even less simple. The calculation for 2100 is totally meaningless.

It is understood that things can change, but they are far from easy to change. And people will adjust their forecasts when people see stuff happening. Right now, not much is happening. TFR continues to decrease, births have basically halved in a decade.

Once again, pointless panic nagging.

AI is a branding label. Today's statistical models, while advanced and useful in various ways, are probably dumber than an ant in many respects.

What is that supposed to mean? They are the fundamentals to modern science. "Dumber than an ant" means what?

Not to forget, even if total automation was possible, this will present other issues:

1. If population doesn't matter, then wouldn't Japan, South Korea, Israel, US, and China all have basically equal strength? Population doesn't matter right?

You've invalidated your own point because if you lined up the countries you mentioned, especially if you included many others like Brazil, India, Indonesia, their national power ranking would not be the same as their population ranking. But it's not that population doesn't matter; it does. It is an aspect, just like technological level.

1. Who will consume?

And we can become that as a society only if massive automation basically eliminates blue collar jobs so that everyone makes a white collar salary and consumes much more per capita than today.

 

[SinoSoldier]

The issue with China's population downturn is not just the loss of labor force participants but also the increased burden of caring for an aging population. This tends to further exacerbate the TFR issue since the time and effort involved with elder care tends to detract from the appeal of having children and raising a family; people are just too financially, emotionally, and physically tapped to raising children.

China reversed the One Child Policy too late, resulting in a population pyramid that is in the process of inverting. But on the other hand, the OCP only had a limited effect on the trajectory of China's population growth/decline, given that the TFR had fallen below replacement before the OCP was even implemented and that there was barely any improvement following the abolition of the OCP.

What is intriguing is that China's TFR saw a significant drop in the 2016/2017 time period, apparently absent of any obvious external forces or developments. I would be curious as to what precipitated that decline.

 

[Index]

The issue with China's population downturn is not just the loss of labor force participants but also the increased burden of caring for an aging population. This tends to further exacerbate the TFR issue since the time and effort involved with elder care tends to detract from the appeal of having children and raising a family; people are just too financially, emotionally, and physically tapped to raising children.

China reversed the One Child Policy too late, resulting in a population pyramid that is in the process of inverting. But on the other hand, the OCP only had a limited effect on the trajectory of China's population growth/decline, given that the TFR had fallen below replacement before the OCP was even implemented and that there was barely any improvement following the abolition of the OCP.

What is intriguing is that China's TFR saw a significant drop in the 2016/2017 time period, apparently absent of any obvious external forces or developments. I would be curious as to what precipitated that decline.

From 2000 to 2020, people went from post soviet living standards to 1st world living standards. With that also came a rapid rise of activities people suddenly were able to undertake, and it happened much faster than humans can naturally adapt.

The first generation of "wealthy" are more focused on their own fun, but many as they get older likely regret not raising children. The generations after that will be influenced by them.

Family planning had minimal effect on China's overall birthrate. The large dip happened due to the proliferation of contraceptives and increased education (and this happened before China withdrew subsidies for more than 1 child), then there's a 2nd dip related to increased materialism which we are living in right now.

 

[SinoSoldier]

The first generation of "wealthy" are more focused on their own fun, but many as they get older likely regret not raising children. The generations after that will be influenced by them.

This seems to suggest that future generations might have more children once economic growth and urbanization stabilize, but this has not been reflected in the demographics of countries that have industrialized - the TFR and birth rates keep going down.

What would be interesting is a breakdown of China's TFR data by age; the US data actually shows a fully stable TFR for young adults while rapidly decreasing TFR in teens, which is actually a positive trend overall.

 

[manqiangrexue]

This seems to suggest that future generations might have more children once economic growth and urbanization stabilize, but this has not been reflected in the demographics of countries that have industrialized - the TFR and birth rates keep going down.

What would be interesting is a breakdown of China's TFR data by age; the US data actually shows a fully stable TFR for young adults while rapidly decreasing TFR in teens, which is actually a positive trend overall.

The way you put it, declining TFR seems to be an irreversible death spiral that will eventually end a population. What events do you register as historically supportive of uplifting TFR and how can they be utilized by China?

 

[GiantPanda]

At one time > 90% people were engaged in agriculture. Today, less than 10% people (in modern) countries can produce much more grain and feed the entire population. Still no net job decrease, people just shifted to something else.

This whole declining demographics is bad bullshit came out just as China was booming in 2010s. It was never as issue when China was piss poor and popping out 5 kids per fertile female in the 1970s.

Back then, a fast growing population was a blocker to advancement because poor nations grew more mouths than their society could properly clothe, feed and educate them. That was what led to the One Child Policy. It wasn't because of some Malthusian fear of over population. The Deng era pragmatists couldn't see how China could get ahead of cycle of poverty created by the pressure of too many mouths to feed which took away resources to advance the country. You cannot build a nation-wide HSR system that transform Chinese life and economy if you had to spend that trillion on food stamps to advert starvation year after year, decade after decade.

As for agriculture, all developing nations should have as their goal to reduce the work force in agriculture and increase those in industry and service.

But it is not possible if your population is growing faster than jobs being created. This is India which has a fast growing economy but a still a young growing population.


Only idiots worry about population collapse in 2100 when the immediate concern is employing people during our immediate future.

 

[SinoSoldier]

This whole declining demographics is bad bullshit came out just as China was booming in 2010s. It was never as issue when China was piss poor and popping out 5 kids per fertile female in the 1970s.

Back then, a fast growing population was a blocker to advancement because poor nations grew more mouths than their society could properly clothe, feed and educate them. That was what led to the One Child Policy. It wasn't because of some Malthusian fear of over population. The Deng era pragmatists couldn't see how China could get ahead of cycle of poverty created by the pressure of too many mouths to feed which took away resources to advance the country. You cannot build a nation-wide HSR system that transform Chinese life and economy if you had to spend that trillion on food stamps to advert starvation year after year, decade after decade.

As for agriculture, all developing nations should have as their goal to reduce the work force in agriculture and increase those in industry and service.

But it is not possible if your population is growing faster than jobs being created. This is India which has a fast growing economy but a still a young growing population.
View attachment 136909

Only idiots worry about population collapse in 2100 when the immediate concern is employing people during our immediate future.

Population decline is a long-term ailment that requires early intervention and may not manifest problems until decade later; short- to medium-term challenges like unemployment cannot justify ignoring the problem, and governments the world over know that.

There is not one instance in which a modernizing society has reversed the trend of a falling TFR, especially when it dips <2.

 

[GiantPanda]

You said it's very simple, then you said almost everyone got it wrong. If you included immigration and life expectancy, it's even less simple. The calculation for 2100 is totally meaningless.

It is totally meaningless.

But they are insisting on 2100 because any realistic calculations in the next 25 to 30 years don't give them the apocalyptic numbers they wanted.

By 2050, using the worst case data we have today, China's population would decline to 1.3B. That is still a tremendous amount of people.

By 2100, the chances that China might be producing tens of millions of people through government programs using artificial wombs to colonize the moon, Mars and the rest of the Milky Way is probably far better than a demographic collapse.

No government or civilization with the proper technology would just allow itself to go extinct. The key is making sure you have that technology when the time comes.

 

[GiantPanda]

Population decline is a long-term ailment that requires early intervention and may not manifest problems until decade later; short- to medium-term challenges like unemployment cannot justify ignoring the problem, and governments the world over know that.

There is not one instance in which a modernizing society has reversed the trend of a falling TFR, especially when it dips <2.

Yes, and no advanced nation had actually gone extinct or had collapsed behind a poor nation with growing population.

Nigeria hasn't passed Japan. The US has not fallen behind India.

China has passed the US in GDP but its population growth rate has fallen at the same time.

So what is the actual situation in the real world? Nothing has really changed. It is a waste of time to worry at this point.

The fall in TFR is simply a women issue. You cannot ask females in an advanced economy with all its attractions and amenities to give up mind and body for children. Child birth is painful and dangerous. Raising children requires sacrifices in career and, frankly, in the pursuit of happiness.

Unless, your economy stay underdeveloped this issue will always be the case.

By 2100, you need technology to alleviate pain and health in birthing children and to alleviate risks and burden in raising them.