China demographics thread.

[CMP]

You're both right. I still think one way to improve this situation is to make surrogacy legal in China, but only for cases when both the sperm and egg donor are PRC citizens. Make it a strictly regulated and monitored process only permitted through government-owned, government-operated, and government-regulated clinics with government-monitored nurses and doctors only. Make it free for married couples making less than a certain annual income. Set a minimum mandatory fee to be paid to surrogates and then let the market sort out how much higher it'll go from there. Over time, you may see more and more women from south asia and south east asia marry PRC men just to become professional surrogates after fulfilling their own family childbirth needs. It'll create a womb drain into China to fill a gap that very much needs filling.

 

[Eventine]

I think the fundamental reason for the declining birth rate is the misalignment of social incentive mechanisms rather than purely ideological promotion. In the past, the more children a family had, the stronger its productivity and the more resources it had. However, in modern society, reproductive behavior actually sacrifices the family but benefits the entire society. This is a prisoner's dilemma of family selfishness. The fundamental solution I can think of is to re bind family resources and productivity to children. Families with more children can receive huge social welfare benefits, while childless families or individuals will be subject to high hidden taxes. But I think this is fair because families with children contribute themselves, while families without children are often free riders in society. If everyone doesn't have children, the ship will eventually sink.

Slight correction - people without children are still contributors to society under the system of capitalism (they consume & pay taxes, and presumably produce as well, if they work), and glorifying the consumer is how we got to this societal state in the first place. Medieval societies did not really care about consumption - they cared about production, and so the link between children & wealth was more direct, as your "worth" to society was a function of your ability to produce (or, in the case of warriors, take control of other people's production by force).

But I overall agree with your post. The only way to restore fertility is to restructure the reward system of modern societies so that there is a fundamental shift in expectations around work & life. A child represents delayed production & consumption, and should be evaluated as such when it comes time to distribute wealth. At the same time, we cannot incentivize pumping out children who will be on permanent welfare - ie families that abuse the system by only consuming public resources and never contributing back.

The correct incentive structure is likely some variation of encouraging people to do 50/50 on work vs. reproduction, and having that be the most rewarding path through life. This can be accomplished with a tax reduction & retirement benefits system, both predicated on families holding down some sort of productive job (and so not being a net drain to society), but where having more children would allow the family to accumulate wealth faster and retire earlier.

 

[Xiongmao]

Can I throw my 2fen into this? I always thought that if the average man on average wages in a single income household could afford an average family sized home, then there would be no problem at all with fertility rates. I asked Gemini if this was reasonable or not for the UK and this is what it said below. The price of an average home is definitely something under the control of a strong enough government.

Based on the available historical data for the UK (particularly from 1997 onwards for comprehensive affordability data) and academic research, there is a strong and consistent statistical correlation showing that worsening housing affordability is associated with declining fertility rates in the UK.

While complex, the underlying mechanism is largely financial and spatial constraint: when a larger proportion of income is consumed by housing, and suitable larger homes become unaffordable, individuals and couples are less likely to have children or more children. The dramatic fall in the UK's Total Fertility Rate since 2012, coinciding with sustained high housing costs, lends significant weight to this correlation, even when acknowledging the multifaceted nature of fertility decisions.

 

[fishrubber99]

One way of framing this issue (that might've been discussed already but will point out again) is that global birth rates are also cratering, and they are cratering at a pace which some of the most optimistic projections of the UN's "World Population Prospects" model couldn't estimate.

In Belarus, for example, the fertility rate in 1988 was at replacement level; it fell to an abysmal 1.22 only nine years later. But then it rebounded, all the way up to 1.73 by 2015. Australia’s birth rate fell to 1.7 in 2001, only to bounce back to 2.0 in 2008. France’s rate followed a similar trajectory during the same period, as did Italy’s and Sweden’s. “To the extent you think the ‘World Population Prospects’ are wrong, that is the extent to which you are saying, ‘This time is different,’” Lyman Stone, a Ph.D. student and birth-rate consultant, told me.

The thing is, this time really does look different. Birth rates in Australia and France and Italy and Sweden have now fallen to all-time lows (excluding during World War I, in France’s case). Belarus, a onetime redemption story, recorded a fertility rate of just 1.1 last year, lower than the lowest lows the country experienced in the 1990s. Deaths outnumbered births by nearly two to one. If a rebound is coming, there are no signs of it yet. Fernández-Villaverde estimates that the world is already below replacement fertility: The population is not just projected but guaranteed to shrink if things don’t change. That was not the case in the 1990s.

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(Atlantic article)

You can also start seeing below replacement rate birthrates for countries which were around or above replacement rates just a few years ago (the most shocking decline to me would be the Philippines going from 2.77 -> 1.55 in 9 years, you can even find a lot of articles written a few years ago talking about how healthy the demography of the Philippines is in terms of aging).

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1929579268532543693

So I believe this is something that humanity in general will have to face collectively, though I'd imagine a country with a strong state which is able to go against the neoliberal economic policies that are prevalent in most of the world (i.e.

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) will probably do better in the long term.

 

[Eventine]

One way of framing this issue (that might've been discussed already but will point out again) is that global birth rates are also cratering, and they are cratering at a pace which some of the most optimistic projections of the UN's "World Population Prospects" model couldn't estimate.

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

(Atlantic article)

You can also start seeing below replacement rate birthrates for countries which were around or above replacement rates just a few years ago (the most shocking decline to me would be the Philippines going from 2.77 -> 1.55 in 9 years, you can even find a lot of articles written a few years ago talking about how healthy the demography of the Philippines is in terms of aging).

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1929579268532543693

So I believe this is something that humanity in general will have to face collectively, though I'd imagine a country with a strong state which is able to go against the neoliberal economic policies that are prevalent in most of the world (i.e.

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

) will probably do better in the long term.

If you compare to how bad East Asia is, Europe's TFR collapse really doesn't look that bad. With current trajectories, Europeans, particularly northern Europeans, will be able to keep their countries going a lot longer in the face of demographic collapse than East Asians.

What I am surprised by is how quickly Southeast Asia's TFR is dropping - it would seem like the plan from Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan to import more Southeast Asians will not be sustainable longer term. They'll need to fix their TFR. Or settle for Indians.

 

[GiantPanda]

If you compare to how bad East Asia is, Europe's TFR collapse really doesn't look that bad. With current trajectories, Europeans, particularly northern Europeans, will be able to keep their countries going a lot longer in the face of demographic collapse than East Asians.

What I am surprised by is how quickly Southeast Asia's TFR is dropping - it would seem like the plan from Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan to import more Southeast Asians will not be sustainable longer term. They'll need to fix their TFR. Or settle for Indians.

The TFR in Northern European is boosted mainly by immigrants. The native population is being replaced in those countries.

That is not happening in East Asia.

Demographics decline is far better than demographics replacement.

 

[siegecrossbow]

If you compare to how bad East Asia is, Europe's TFR collapse really doesn't look that bad. With current trajectories, Europeans, particularly northern Europeans, will be able to keep their countries going a lot longer in the face of demographic collapse than East Asians.

What I am surprised by is how quickly Southeast Asia's TFR is dropping - it would seem like the plan from Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan to import more Southeast Asians will not be sustainable longer term. They'll need to fix their TFR. Or settle for Indians.

France has TFR 2.0 but they are going the way of their soccer team, which caused massive salt on behalf of right wing white supremacists everywhere.

The TFR in Northern European is boosted mainly by immigrants. The native population is being replaced in those countries.

That is not happening in East Asia.

Demographics decline is far better than demographics replacement.

Personally I think that race is way less important than cultural integration. Given the choice of a Terry Crews looking Chad expat who speak the language and runs a successful business and actually appreciates the culture versus a Joshua Huang looking/acting Chinese lib — which one is a bigger problem for China?

 

[FriedRiceNSpice]

China, having the advantage of a socialist system should socialize childcare and education costs. Maternal care, childbirth, and post-partum maternal care should be free for all citizens (first 1-2 children, depending on area). Daycare and education should be completely free (first 2 children). College should be free for all 211 and 986 colleges. Private tutoring should be permitted, but make government issued vouchers the only acceptable form of payment. Voucher should be issued by government based on area, number of children, and intellectual potential and/or academic performance of the child. Vouchers can also be issued for food and baby supplies, such as diapers. These programs can easily be funded by across the board small increases to taxation on income and real estate.

 

[GiantPanda]

France has TFR 2.0 but they are going the way of their soccer team, which caused massive salt on behalf of right wing white supremacists everywhere.


Personally I think that race is way less important than cultural integration. Given the choice of a Terry Crews looking Chad expat who speak the language and runs a successful business and actually appreciates the culture versus a Joshua Huang looking/acting Chinese lib — which one is a bigger problem for China?

It is culture. New arrivals from unrelated cultures will inevitably break the social compacts built up by the native population over decades and centuries.

What is happening in Sweden is basically a living laboratory in Northern European where a very high trust society is descending into a rape culture akin to what we see in India:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1939377653208826320

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BTW, I have little sympathy for these blatantly anti-Chinese Nordics but I do find their demographic trends interesting.

If I were to bet on East Asia or Scandinavia in the next 50 years? I'd take the absolutely horrorshow of S Korea with its 0.70 TFR over Sweden and its everspreading "no-go zones" any day.

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[tokenanalyst]

If you compare to how bad East Asia is, Europe's TFR collapse really doesn't look that bad. With current trajectories, Europeans, particularly northern Europeans, will be able to keep their countries going a lot longer in the face of demographic collapse than East Asians.

What I am surprised by is how quickly Southeast Asia's TFR is dropping - it would seem like the plan from Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan to import more Southeast Asians will not be sustainable longer term. They'll need to fix their TFR. Or settle for Indians.

That is immigrants man, native white Europeans is probably as bad a South Korea.