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As a result of the infamous one child policy, China developed a significant gender imbalance that has been well known for a couple of decades now. This means that without utilizing foreign sources, many men in China will have no one to marry but that is not the end of the story by any means. Apparently China's marriage rate has also been declining and since 2013 it has dropped an astounding 40%. So in additional to Chinese citizens not being able to find a marriage partner, there is now a growing number of Chinese who have the ablity to get married but choose not to do so.
As far as I am aware, Chinese society is still more traditional than American or other western societies. China does not seem to tolerate single parenthood or welfare mothers which makes marriage a prerequisite for having children. Marriage is already in decline and the high cost of urban living and preparing for educational exams further discourages people from having children.
China has a subset of it's population that can't get the opportunity to get married. Add to that another subset that could get married but chooses not to get married. Add to that another subset that is married and could have children but decides not to due to high cost of living and other stressors. Then we get into the headline of the linked article which is that they have found out that 50 million couples in China are struggling with infertility. The pool of people willing to have families has shrunk dramatically over the last decade and within that shrunken pool, 50 million couples who want children may not be able to conceive.
Some people dismiss the effects of the one child policy but when all these factors are combined the situation in China appears to be very dire.
The solution to demographic crises such as that in China, is immigration. There are plenty of folks in countries neighboring and surrounding China, who would be quite keen on not only becoming Chinese residents, but reinventing themselves according to Chinese language and culture. The impediment is nationalistic-xenophobic fervor.
Globally we have less of a population-totality problem than a population distribution problem. Natural resources, job availability, housing, and manpower and mismatched. To fix this woudl require trans-national authority and legislation, whichf for myriad reasons is never going to happen. So perhaps we are indeed doomed after all...
The solution to demographic crises such as that in China, is immigration. There are plenty of folks in countries neighboring and surrounding China, who would be quite keen on not only becoming Chinese residents, but reinventing themselves according to Chinese language and culture. The impediment is nationalistic-xenophobic fervor.
Globally we have less of a population-totality problem than a population distribution problem. Natural resources, job availability, housing, and manpower and mismatched. To fix this woudl require trans-national authority and legislation, whichf for myriad reasons is never going to happen. So perhaps we are indeed doomed after all...
I'm curious to know which countries you're referring to. If you look at the bordering countries, none of them are friendly with China and some are on actual warlike terms. Probably the only country whose people are longing to escape into China would be North Korea, and their entire population (estimated 26 million) is less than one large Chinese city.
The Muslim countries of central/South Asia (Pakistan, Afghan, the other 'stans) are an unlikely source of immigration to China, even if China allowed it. China is an anti-Muslim country, anti-religion in general actually. Not too many Muslims are yearning to go there and be reeducated. Though, economic opportunists might be trying to go work there for a couple of years; who knows.
The only real and massive source of peops is Africa, and while there are thousands of Chinese businesses operating there, so you'd think there'd be some flow of people into China, in fact the Africans generally hate the Chinese for being openly racist and just exploiting the continent with little regard for helping the locals to develop (their Roads and Bridges initiative is a new phenomenon and who knows, it may repair that image a bit).
Inside China itself, dark-skinned people are most unwelcome, including signs on shops "No Africans allowed".
I get the impression the Chinese regime actually would welcome a smaller population -- easier to control, obviously fewer mouths to feed and cars to fuel up and homes to power. However, the demographic implosion they're experiencing is far worse than anyone imagined even 20-30 years ago.
As a result of the infamous one child policy, China developed a significant gender imbalance
that has been well known for a couple of decades now.
The poorly considered and harshly imposed Chinese one child policy... is a "HOW" aspect of the question.
The "WHY" aspect... of reducing population levels ... remains as valid as it ever was.
Valid in China, in India, In the US, In virtually every corner of the world.
Focus on devising better HOW to approaches.
#1 on that list for me is a delayed first birth for those women who WANT to have children.
#1a is education to encourage interests & capacities beyond daycare skills.
The poorly considered and harshly imposed Chinese one child policy... is a "HOW" aspect of the question.
The "WHY" aspect... of reducing population levels ... remains as valid as it ever was.
Valid in China, in India, In the US, In virtually every corner of the world.
Focus on devising better HOW to approaches.
#1 on that list for me is a delayed first birth for those women who WANT to have children.
#1a is education to encourage interests & capacities beyond daycare skills.
The one child policy is over-hyped.
China's birthrate had already fallen because of urbanization and education when one child was instituted. The one child policy nudged TFR down a few tenths of a point.
China would be maybe 5-10 years behind where they are now without the one child policy.
Poorly considered? Yes because it was only briefly needed and gave critics a lot of ammunition.
India has a similar problem with sex imbalances due to sex-selective abortion, with no controls on fertility.
India's government recently released new scaled-back peak population projections.
Instead of peaking in 40 years at 1.7B, it is now expected to peak in 10 years at 1.6B. The knock-on effects are considerable.
Full access to this Economist piece requires an account, but you get the gist from the opening graf.
India's government recently released new scaled-back peak population projections.
Instead of peaking in 40 years at 1.7B, it is now expected to peak in 10 years at 1.6B. The knock-on effects are considerable.
Full access to this Economist piece requires an account, but you get the gist from the opening graf.
Good article.
Love their word "preponed". That should make it into our thread above.
As was said, demographers doubt that China really has 1.4B people. It is likely they have 1.2B, and very likely that population of China has already peaked and is headed down.
The new calculations from India means world population may have already peaked. We can't know the exact moment of peak population, of course, but it sure looks like it is "now" within very few years.
I don't get why anyone is worried about a population reduction. In 1950 there was 2.5 billion people. In 50 years another 4 billion!
If you're worried about a labor shortage fear not. Businesses will use AI automation and robots to make and offer products and services. The US gov has already established an "AI initiative" office.
I don't get why anyone is worried about a population reduction. In 1950 there was 2.5 billion people. In 50 years another 4 billion!
If you're worried about a labor shortage fear not. Businesses will use AI automation and robots to make and offer products and services. The US gov has already established an "AI initiative" office.
The post-WW2 period was a global baby boom; the depleted countries of Europe, USSR, the U.S., China, and Japan all had huge population growth. Families of 4-5 were common in the U.S. back in the 1950s.
China's ruling Communists became so alarmed at population growth that they slapped a one-child rule on the populace, though even then, families in rural areas still had 3-4 children; the reality is that farming populations need large families to get all the chores done.
However since the 1970s or so, there's actually been a crash in growth in all of these same countries. Japan and Germany are two of the lowest birthrates on the planet, and South Korea similar. The U.S. only has a higher birth rate because of immigrants, who traditionally have larger families.
Now, there's been an interesting trend in the U.S. toward homesteading, because of crime, food insecurity, perception of toxicity/amoral/craziness in mainstream society and desire to live and raise children in a more wholesome environment.
Once you start a homestead, which can be as simple as a modest house on a couple of acres with food crops and a few animals like cows and chickens, you suddenly find that a large family is an asset. As soon as they can walk, the kids can start helping, and every pair of hands means you can get more work done in a day. A family of 5, 6, 7, even 9 children is not uncommon on these small farms. Example: "Homesteading Family" channel on Youtube, 9 kids. Justin Rhodes channel, 5 kids. Several others 3-5 kids. (I watch a lot of homesteading videos.)
So you might call it a micro-trend back toward rural living with larger families. Just a drop in the bucket in our vast country, but it's not nothing.
I don't get why anyone is worried about a population reduction. In 1950 there was 2.5 billion people. In 50 years another 4 billion!
If you're worried about a labor shortage fear not. Businesses will use AI automation and robots to make and offer products and services. The US gov has already established an "AI initiative" office.
True, I suppose, AI will be of assistance.
But what will cause population stability - that is, why will women go back to having more children? Because if women do not go back to having more children, population will simply continue its decline until there are too few people to be served by all those AI devices.
The biggest worry about population decline is that a declining population means a larger old population and a smaller working population and a smaller labor participation rate. China, for example, sees a 23% decrease in working population in just 20 years.
And that means a poorer country - one filled with retirement age people who are unproductive.
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