China demographics thread.

[Nevermore]

I expect the birth rate to continue to decline significantly this year, but with the implementation of policies, it is expected to stabilize the birth rate in the coming years. Currently, there are significant negative barriers in China in terms of marriage intention, housing, cost of childbirth and child rearing, and attitudes towards childbirth
If the future fertility subsidy can increase by 200% -400%, together with other optimization policies, the fertility rate may be able to recover to 1.2-1.5

 

[Nevermore]

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Hohhot has a general election for families with three children and above to enroll in the city, and registered residence restrictions have been cancelled in the pilot program for primary school starting grades
This is a very radical pilot policy that is likely to lead to social protests and backlash, as this preferential treatment discriminates against families with one or two children. Some people say that families with three children will be "dragon like" and "school district children".

 

[coolgod]

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Hohhot has a general election for families with three children and above to enroll in the city, and registered residence restrictions have been cancelled in the pilot program for primary school starting grades
This is a very radical pilot policy that is likely to lead to social protests and backlash, as this preferential treatment discriminates against families with one or two children. Some people say that families with three children will be "dragon like" and "school district children".

Great policy, these pro-natal policies need to accelerate.

 

[Totoro]

Weird choice of treshold, though. Why just 3 and above? Much greater effect would be felt with 2 and above. Only reasoning I can think of is finances. Affording 2 and more for everyone might not be possible. And discriminating and offering incentives to just SOME of the 2+ kid families might've been regarded as too risky to backfire.

But ultimately, the biggest issue of low births is not people who have a kid but don't have two. (and especially not people who have two kids but don't have three)
The hardest nut to crack will be getting people with no kids to have any kids at all. For those, monetary compensation and any sort of child education and child rearing help will not work nearly as well. And given that those people make up like over 30% of overall population capable of having kids - without addressing that group, results of any demographics incentives will always be fairly poor.

 

[Nevermore]

Weird choice of treshold, though. Why just 3 and above? Much greater effect would be felt with 2 and above. Only reasoning I can think of is finances. Affording 2 and more for everyone might not be possible. And discriminating and offering incentives to just SOME of the 2+ kid families might've been regarded as too risky to backfire.

But ultimately, the biggest issue of low births is not people who have a kid but don't have two. (and especially not people who have two kids but don't have three)
The hardest nut to crack will be getting people with no kids to have any kids at all. For those, monetary compensation and any sort of child education and child rearing help will not work nearly as well. And given that those people make up like over 30% of overall population capable of having kids - without addressing that group, results of any demographics incentives will always be fairly poor.

I believe that DINK families are still very rare, and the prominent problem now may be that young people are not in love or getting married
On the one hand, it is due to economic difficulties and work pressure, and on the other hand, it may be due to cultural factors. In the past, I have read reports that the proportion of college students in love has significantly decreased compared to the past

 

[Eventine]

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IMO, the rise in birth rate by itself would not be significant (since it was the Year of the Dragon and South Korea follows the same zodiac calendar), although as a % of births it was larger than China's (3.6% vs. 1.05%). But there's an important statistic buried in the article:

Marriages, a leading indicator of new births, jumped 14.9% in 2024 [in South Korea], the biggest spike since the data started being released in 1970. Marriages turned up for the first time in 11 years in 2023 with a 1.0% increase powered by a post-pandemic boost.

This is compared to a 20% crash in marriage rates in China in 2024.

Naturally, South Korean nationalists are declaring they crushed China in demographics, etc. We will see whether the marriage rate increase is sustained in South Korea, and for now China still has much higher TFR than South Korea (1 vs 0.75). Nonetheless, it indicates there are some severe issues in China that are not being properly addressed by the government / society.

In East Asia, child birth rarely happens outside of wed lock. Even when people express support for out of wed lock births, conservative attitudes towards marriage, family, and especially single-mother economics prevail. Consequently, the key to unlocking higher birth rates is higher marriage rates. In this respect, South Korea's conservative government under Yoon has - like it or not - indeed done an impressive job at raising South Korean marriage rates.

The Chinese government needs to do more.

 

[Biscuits]

I expect the birth rate to continue to decline significantly this year, but with the implementation of policies, it is expected to stabilize the birth rate in the coming years. Currently, there are significant negative barriers in China in terms of marriage intention, housing, cost of childbirth and child rearing, and attitudes towards childbirth
If the future fertility subsidy can increase by 200% -400%, together with other optimization policies, the fertility rate may be able to recover to 1.2-1.5

Not really, it is already increasing compared to before.

The major issue raised was unaffordable housing. But "housing" really betrays the more deep seated issue in the China of the early 2010s and before. The fact is, people had to buy expensive first tier housing because amenities were bad in low tier cities. That is the absolute root of the problem.

So even if housing reform is a thing, the much more important fix is the living standards boom. With the improved logistics and infrastructure along with huge wage growths, most of China has exited the post Soviet world and reached/passed western development level. This means families are no longer restricted in having to 1. Buy expensive housing. 2. Choosing between poorer living or being forced to move to tier 1 cities. It's hard to emphasize just how important that change is.

Sentiment takes 5-10 years to catch up. I'd expect the bigger results to roll in only around 2030. There will still be a slow gain like we're seeing now, but not a major bucking of the trend.

 

[Jiang ZeminFanboy]

Two extremes in China, one is Bobai County, and the other is a Tumen city in the dying-out Dongbei

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1898124431014195238

But I feel that the youngest left to live either in the big cities in the south or to South Korea, so the statistics are not accurate. Anyway the Dongbei is dying, and the Liaoning is the last stronghold economically and demographically there.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1893359534464221506

 

[Michael90]

I expect the birth rate to continue to decline significantly this year, but with the implementation of policies, it is expected to stabilize the birth rate in the coming years. Currently, there are significant negative barriers in China in terms of marriage intention, housing, cost of childbirth and child rearing, and attitudes towards childbirth
If the future fertility subsidy can increase by 200% -400%, together with other optimization policies, the fertility rate may be able to recover to 1.2-1.5

To be honest, what's the alarm about this population decline in China. China is already over 1.4 billion people. So a decrease in population isn't such a bad thing. There's a reason the CCP strictly implemented the one child policy which lasted for over 40 years. If they thought increase in youthful population was that necessary then they wouldnt have adopted such a radical policy in the first place.. So I think they know what they are doing better than us. So it's not the end of the world if there's a population decline in China as some seem to think. In fact, a population of less than a billion people should be ideal for China given the country's resources and landmass. Let Indians keep breeding like rabbits. Lol. They never had a 1 child policy, plus at the rate they are going, they might reach 2billion soon this coming decades. Lool This will put even more pressure on government spending and employment etc.

 

[Nevermore]

There is still a lot that the government needs to do: support services for childbirth (maternity insurance, maternity leave, rejection of discrimination against women, universal childcare, education burden reduction, etc.), considerable subsidies for childbirth, correct guidance and education on marriage and childbirth, correct views on love, and on the other hand, solving employment problems for young people, increasing income, and reducing ineffective internal competition. These problems are actually accumulated during the rapid development of the Chinese economy in the past, it is time to slow down and solve them.
This is a very long process, probably five to ten years later, when everything starts moving in the right direction, the marriage and fertility rates may have a certain boost.
In terms of goals, if China can maintain a fertility rate of 1.5 or above from 2035 onwards, it would already be quite remarkable.