Chinese Economics Thread

[Michael90]

Unlike the West, the lowest TFR cohort in East Asia isn't a career women, but rather low-education men (0.3 TFR in Korea), who lost the status competition game. This is specifically an East Asian problem because the status tournament is single-ladder. The exam determines university, university determines career, career determines marriageability. Lose early and there's no alternative tournament and no one has kids outside of marriage.

In the past, rural areas had separate status hierarchies where a physically strong farmer could still marry. Urbanization collapsed those and now everyone competes in the same city game and the losers have no backup. The only mitigating factor is in richer countries, these men can marry overseas brides from poorer countries.

Fertility and demographic discussions have always focused on women and families (which only include educated men in East Asia), but this entire cohort is always marginalized/forgotten.

Here's an even crazier policy idea: state-subsidized looksmaxxing for low-education men. Free HGH for height, GLP-1s for weight, standardized govt-run gyms, skincare, grooming, hair centers. The only serious way to raise the fertility floor is to make these men marriageable. And the most direct path is making them physically attractive, because when you can't compete on income and status, looks are the remaining variable.

The obvious longer term solution is to "break the wheel" of these status tournaments, but East Asian Confucian society loves involution-style competition, so creating a secondary tournament of lookmaxxing for this cohort may be a good compromise.

Dude , this is funny and not realistic at all. lol
On a serious note, from the little experience and observation I have made during my journeys/time in Asia , I would say the Chinese females have embraced feminism probably the most to an extreme . They seem to be even more obsessed with wealth/possession more than even Koreans (which is quite an achievement knowing Koreans shallowness. lol) and some of their demands in this aspect can be outrageous . So I actually feel for the average young Chinese man striving to find a partner . Guess more and more Chinese men will be marrying foreign women, can’t blame them much

Ironically Japan who has been the first develop Asian country for over half a century still retains traditional values of roles of males and females , which I was shocked about. They haven’t really changed their views towards male/female gender roles that radically as I would have expected compared to even us in the west. This actually came as a shock to me to be honest . It’s no wonder even today Japanese women are not allowed som certain privilege males are allowed. Look at their first female prime minister views on women’s role. You will be surprised she holds such views as a woman herself .
it’s amazing that Chinas birth rate (despite still technically being a developing country) is now lower than even Japan. Quite shocking to be honest.

 

[Quan8410]

Dude , this is funny and not realistic at all. lol
On a serious note, from the little experience and observation I have made during my journeys/time in Asia , I would say the Chinese females have embraced feminism probably the most to an extreme . They seem to be even more obsessed with wealth/possession more than even Koreans (which is quite an achievement knowing Koreans shallowness. lol) and some of their demands in this aspect can be outrageous . So I actually feel for the average young Chinese man striving to find a partner . Guess more and more Chinese men will be marrying foreign women, can’t blame them much

Ironically Japan who has been the first develop Asian country for over half a century still retains traditional values of roles of males and females , which I was shocked about. They haven’t really changed their views towards male/female gender roles that radically as I would have expected compared to even us in the west. This actually came as a shock to me to be honest . It’s no wonder even today Japanese women are not allowed som certain privilege males are allowed. Look at their first female prime minister views on women’s role. You will be surprised she holds such views as a woman herself .
it’s amazing that Chinas birth rate (despite still technically being a developing country) is now lower than even Japan. Quite shocking to be honest.

Japan literally has royalty so of course they retain more traditional value. Women in China have way more power than Japan because of Mao. A big legacy of Mao is to bring equality to women. They even played a very important role in Red Guards.

 

[TK3600]

Dude , this is funny and not realistic at all. lol
On a serious note, from the little experience and observation I have made during my journeys/time in Asia , I would say the Chinese females have embraced feminism probably the most to an extreme . They seem to be even more obsessed with wealth/possession more than even Koreans (which is quite an achievement knowing Koreans shallowness. lol) and some of their demands in this aspect can be outrageous . So I actually feel for the average young Chinese man striving to find a partner . Guess more and more Chinese men will be marrying foreign women, can’t blame them much

Ironically Japan who has been the first develop Asian country for over half a century still retains traditional values of roles of males and females , which I was shocked about. They haven’t really changed their views towards male/female gender roles that radically as I would have expected compared to even us in the west. This actually came as a shock to me to be honest . It’s no wonder even today Japanese women are not allowed som certain privilege males are allowed. Look at their first female prime minister views on women’s role. You will be surprised she holds such views as a woman herself .
it’s amazing that Chinas birth rate (despite still technically being a developing country) is now lower than even Japan. Quite shocking to be honest.

But is Japanese TFR even good? I don't think gender tradition is the determinant factor.

 

[virsuvei]

Boosting birth rates doesn't seem to be a high priority or urgent task right now, otherwise you'd see it prominently in the 15th FYP with specific targets.

Governments really haven't been creative in experimenting new pro-natal policies. Most just try giving money or longer parental leave which have proven to not work at all. Giving money is probably the least effective policy, since the amount you need to give to change behavior is astronomical and infeasible.

Some ideas:

1. Give extra points for the number of kids you have for the national service exam. Or better yet after a certain good enough threshold on the exam, just look at who have the most kids and give them the jobs. Most white collar office jobs can be done by anyone smart enough, so the competition to select who gets in become meaningless involution - might as well compete on giving birth.
2. Enforce DEI / Bumiputera style policies on enterprises where the average kid per employee must be above a certain standard or get fined / pay higher taxes.
3. Promote having kids as a core value for party members (replacement for pro-natal religious belief). Give preferences for joining the party and advancing up the ranks based on how many kids you have.

Coupling having kids and getting prestigious stable high-income jobs could be the most effective path for Confucian societies, but no one has really tried this seriously.

In affecting people one superior factor is taxation. Here in my country we used to have an old maid / old boy tax for single persons but it was abandoned way ago. How about introducing a no-kids tax so that every man and woman in the 20 - 45 years bracket without kids has to pay 1% of their income as a special tax. I'm pretty sure that tax avoidance would be extensive. A woman having three miscarriages or one child born dead would be relieved.

 

[siegecrossbow]

In affecting people one superior factor is taxation. Here in my country we used to have an old maid / old boy tax for single persons but it was abandoned way ago. How about introducing a no-kids tax so that every man and woman in the 20 - 45 years bracket without kids has to pay 1% of their income as a special tax. I'm pretty sure that tax avoidance would be extensive. A woman having three miscarriages or one child born dead would be relieved.

That would just cause radical femnazis to abort their kids.

 

[HighGround]

Dude , this is funny and not realistic at all. lol
On a serious note, from the little experience and observation I have made during my journeys/time in Asia , I would say the Chinese females have embraced feminism probably the most to an extreme . They seem to be even more obsessed with wealth/possession more than even Koreans (which is quite an achievement knowing Koreans shallowness. lol) and some of their demands in this aspect can be outrageous . So I actually feel for the average young Chinese man striving to find a partner . Guess more and more Chinese men will be marrying foreign women, can’t blame them much

Ironically Japan who has been the first develop Asian country for over half a century still retains traditional values of roles of males and females , which I was shocked about. They haven’t really changed their views towards male/female gender roles that radically as I would have expected compared to even us in the west. This actually came as a shock to me to be honest . It’s no wonder even today Japanese women are not allowed som certain privilege males are allowed. Look at their first female prime minister views on women’s role. You will be surprised she holds such views as a woman herself .
it’s amazing that Chinas birth rate (despite still technically being a developing country) is now lower than even Japan. Quite shocking to be honest.

From what I've heard and experienced. East Asian women are both, hyper feminist and hyper status conscious. They want a high-status man just as badly as they want to complain about gender inequality. To me, it's just absurd.

To me, it seems like there is a class of people in China who are developmentally behind in this regard. There's far too many people who care massively about status and flexing. Money is important, but being loud about it needs to become very distasteful IMO.

 

[GiantCanofWater]

I don’t think demographics is something the government can afford to tackle right now and not worth talking about, nor should we in this thread. It’s something that will be prioritized after China becomes developed and we see more approaches and results from Japan and Korea. If they wanted to increase birth rates seriously they would need to start at square one by adding some sort of welfare first which we see no effort in. China needs to get the money to afford these things in the first place.

They’re pushing to stop the involution problem which is good. Increasing efficiency with automation and letting worker wages be increased is good. Overall the economy is growing. But despite nice macro numbers, nobody has confidence in the economy. The government needs to do something about increasing consumer confidence. Maybe something to help the many who lost large portions of their savings in housing. People need to feel secure before they spend (and have kids). Meaning having a stable nice paying job and stable investments/savings. Both of which they’re missing. Unemployment is terrible and the amount of gig workers is insane. I doubt people making pennies delivering meituan orders are going to be happy or spend money. But I don’t think there’s much the government can do about that. The world is increasingly unstable as well. Right now it looks like Chinas in a perfect storm of problems that they either cant do anything about or are extremely difficult to deal with and require large scale reforms. I don’t think things will fully recover until the end of the decade.

Do you guys have any ideas on what China can do to help consumer confidence?

 

[wuguanhui]

In affecting people one superior factor is taxation. Here in my country we used to have an old maid / old boy tax for single persons but it was abandoned way ago. How about introducing a no-kids tax so that every man and woman in the 20 - 45 years bracket without kids has to pay 1% of their income as a special tax. I'm pretty sure that tax avoidance would be extensive. A woman having three miscarriages or one child born dead would be relieved.

Yes but make 10%. Also no children, no pension, because children are future tax payers.

 

[Moonscape]

Man demographics chat never goes well. Let's stop the outlandish ideas and refocus.

Honestly the best solution is reasonable child subsidies (China can certainly afford more than the minuscule amount it's giving parents now, and it's far better use of redistribution than a "helicopter money" blanket transfer) plus Gaokao bonus points. +0 for only children, +5 per kid for two kids, +10 per kid for 3 kids, +15 per kid for 4 kids or more.

 

[fishrubber99]

Unemployment is terrible and the amount of gig workers is insane. I doubt people making pennies delivering meituan orders are going to be happy or spend money.

Food delivery drivers in China actually make above average income for blue collar work. And the hours are not much longer than typical blue collar jobs (roughly 48 hours per week).

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/2057999799191031839

The real issue is the algorithmic pressure and safety risk associated with the job since you need to be fast in traffic, but the government has implemented measures which obligate companies to pay work accident insurance. And comparable jobs in manufacturing/mining/construction all have their own risk profiles.