China demographics thread.

[solman]

The only way is cultivating a culture where childbirth is good. Right now there is a negative association with anything 'poverty' and having lots of kids in China looks lower class. This is very harmful to society and I hope the opposite is pushed in every way soon.

It would be interesting to see how large an impact economic incentives can have (in the absence of social change; or perhaps even serving as the catalyst for social change).

For example, I believe that income taxes in China are still assessed on an individual basis. Imagine instead that the tax rate bracket is based on the amount of family income divided by the number of people in the family, including spouses and unmarried children who are under 18 or have not yet finished their education.

This would create a considerable economic incentive for people to have children, especially for those families that are fairly well off.

If the tax rates were to become modestly more progressive in the next few years (something I would predict), it would be easy to sketch scenarios in which going from one child to two reduces a well off family's income tax burden by nearly 20%.

While not completely life changing, it would directly ease the concerns of the many couples who say that adding a second child is simply not economical... and it delivers the largest incentive to the families Beijing would most like to increase in size.

 

[solman]

Is.rl solved it with militant xenophobia and the notion that the only way to prevent being demographically overtaken is to outbirth the Arabs.

This isn't accurate. If you look at Israel, you have separate populations of secular and highly religious Jews. The highly religious Jews reproduce at a very high clip. Women mostly do not work outside of the home, and it's a mitzvah to have as many children as you are able to. Similar birth rates are observed amongst very religious Jews in the United States (where there is no demographic challenge to outgrow Arab populations), they just don't represent as high a portion of the population.

This

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says that very religious Israeli Jews are growing at a rate of 4.2% per year versus 1.2% for the rest of the Jewish population.

 

[solman]

The population problem is a cycle, like a sinusoid, when it goes to the top, the next it goes down. And when it goes to the bottom, it will rise again

For example, Japan is facing the problem of aging population, the death rate is higher than the birth rate. Their population is constantly dwindling. But will it lead to the extinction of the nation? Absolutely not. When it bottoms out, their population will start to grow again,

Bringing immigrants into the country does not solve the fundamental problem. Ultimately, it leads to immigrants replacing natives and after a generation or two they face the same problem as the old natives, they invite more immigrants, and it becomes a death lock

The most logical option is to accept population decline, as a natural process, instead of accepting the replacement of the population with immigrants.

Automation and artificial intelligence are the future.

What would you expect to cause Japan's population to increase again?

 

[sinophilia]

What would you expect to cause Japan's population to increase again?

Going back to the culture at the time of Imperial Japan.

Lolz

These guys probably have 6 kids a woman.

 

[In4ser]

It would be interesting to see how large an impact economic incentives can have (in the absence of social change; or perhaps even serving as the catalyst for social change).

For example, I believe that income taxes in China are still assessed on an individual basis. Imagine instead that the tax rate bracket is based on the amount of family income divided by the number of people in the family, including spouses and unmarried children who are under 18 or have not yet finished their education.

This would create a considerable economic incentive for people to have children, especially for those families that are fairly well off.

If the tax rates were to become modestly more progressive in the next few years (something I would predict), it would be easy to sketch scenarios in which going from one child to two reduces a well off family's income tax burden by nearly 20%.

While not completely life changing, it would directly ease the concerns of the many couples who say that adding a second child is simply not economical... and it delivers the largest incentive to the families Beijing would most like to increase in size.

Unfortunately, it's hard to factor in non-economic costs like the time and energy costs of raising a kid. Seeing how similar pro-child incentives and subsidies have failed to stop the demographic decline in Europe and E. Asia, the policy will be robust enough that parents would not only have comparable levels of economic costs as childless counter-parts but that it may need to be to the extent that it's economically detrimental for the childless NOT to have a child (at least slightly). Perhaps something like a child-less tax in which its collection would be dedicated pro-child funding and incentives and as more and more people have kids and tax collection may drop but so too will the need to have as many kids.

 

[gadgetcool5]

This isn't accurate. If you look at Israel, you have separate populations of secular and highly religious Jews. The highly religious Jews reproduce at a very high clip. Women mostly do not work outside of the home, and it's a mitzvah to have as many children as you are able to. Similar birth rates are observed amongst very religious Jews in the United States (where there is no demographic challenge to outgrow Arab populations), they just don't represent as high a portion of the population.

This

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says that very religious Israeli Jews are growing at a rate of 4.2% per year versus 1.2% for the rest of the Jewish population.

Israel is a very interesting case because they have actually seen a sharp increase in their birth rate as their country has gotten richer. Further, most of the increase came among the non-religious Jews:

Israel’s Demographic Miracle​

While Israel’s ultra-Orthodox minority contributes disproportionately to Jewish population growth, most of the increase in Jewish births comes from the secular and non-Orthodox religious categories, which average 2.6 children per woman. Faitelson notes that the ultra-Orthodox fertility rate fell over the past decade, while the fertility of the general Jewish population rose.

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Here is from a more recent report:

Why are there so many children in Israel?​

Another argument is that Israel’s high fertility is driven by certain parts of the population, such as Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) women, having many children (the fertility rate of Haredi women is indeed quite high at around 7 children per woman).

However, the rise in Israel’s fertility over the last two decades has been largely driven by the secular and traditional Jewish populations, whose combined fertility rate is greater than 2.2, which is itself higher than the overall fertility in any other OECD country.

Furthermore, Israel’s fertility is not only exceptional because it is high. It is also exceptional because strong pronatalist norms cut across all educational classes and levels of religiosity, and because fertility has been increasing alongside a rise in the age at which women first give birth and increasing education levels — at least in the Jewish population. From an international perspective, these are extremely unusual patterns.

For example, Israeli women are having more kids even though they are having them later in life and working more. In fact, non-Haredi Jewish women in Israel have higher employment rates than women in any other OECD country, except for Iceland. Around the world, both increased age at first birth and increased labor force participation are generally correlated with declining fertility, yet the trends in Israel do not follow suit.

Additionally, in almost every other developed country, more educated women have fewer children than less educated women. However, by age 40, Israeli women with a college degree have the same number of children as those whose highest level of education is high school.

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The behavior is Jewish people is a dream for any government demographer. Not only a educated population, but an educated, hardworking population with strong demographics. In my view the reason is entirely cultural. Israeli Jews because of their hard history and strong sense of identity put the good of the country first, and are willing to bear and raise children even if it means they do not get to enjoy such a luxurious or relaxed life.

 

[solman]

Perhaps, in the grand scheme of things, it's for the best for humanity as climate c

Unfortunately, it's hard to factor in non-economic costs like the time and energy costs of raising a kid. Seeing how similar pro-child incentives and subsidies have failed to stop the demographic in Europe and Asia, the policy will be robust enough that parents would not only have comparable levels of economic costs as childless counter-parts but that it may need to be to the extent that its economically detrimental for the childless NOT to have a child (at least slightly). Perhaps something like a child-less tax in which its funding would be solely dedicated pro-child credits and funding and as more and more people has kids and tax collection may drop but so too will the need to have as many kids.

China remains very low income compared to the countries that we usually talk about having a major population decline. It would take an absurd amount of money for me to consider having a third child. And when people in the US and Japan are asked questions like this, they usually talk about time and life balance. It seems like Chinese couples are much quicker to talk about the financial consequences.

Part of that may be the general openness to discussing personal financial matters. But it makes sense to me that economic incentives might go further in lower income countries.

 

[solman]

Israel is a very interesting case because they have actually seen a sharp increase in their birth rate as their country has gotten richer. Further, most of the increase came among the non-religious Jews:

Israel’s Demographic Miracle​

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Here is from a more recent report:

Why are there so many children in Israel?​

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

The behavior is Jewish people is a dream for any government demographer. Not only a educated population, but an educated, hardworking population with strong demographics. In my view the reason is entirely cultural. Israeli Jews because of their hard history and strong sense of identity put the good of the country first, and are willing to bear and raise children even if it means they do not get to enjoy such a luxurious or relaxed life.

I observe that the fraction of the population that is Haredi is (naturally) increasing at a rapid clip. As the country has gotten richer, the fraction of the population that is Haredi has substantially increased, simply because both increase over time.

It think that the changed trajectory of the (still high for developed nations) Israeli fertility rate is due to the increasing number of highly religious Jews and Arab Israelis. This trend will almost certainly continue to accelerate over the next few decades, resulting in significant additional fertility increases. This is a demographic inevitability that is driven by religious beliefs that exist in these same communities when they are found outside of Israel, particularly in the United States: e.g.:

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in New York where the median age is 13.

 

[solman]

Going back to the culture at the time of Imperial Japan.

Lolz

These guys probably have 6 kids a woman.

That was a culture in which the average income was under $1000 in current dollars, women didn't work and few were educated. Returning to such times would be an extraordinary retrograde transformation.

It is not impossible for a small sect of rapidly reproducing families to eventually drive up the Japanese population, but I do not think you can identify such a group today and realistically project (based on its size) that they would have a material impact on Japanese population growth before the end of the century. [As opposed to the other conversation about Israel, where such a group is easily identified, has grown to significant size, and may quite plausibly dominate Israeli demographics by the end of the century.]

 

[solman]

That was a culture in which the average income was under $1000 in current dollars, women didn't work and few were educated. Returning to such times would be an extraordinary retrograde transformation.

It is not impossible for a small sect of rapidly reproducing families to eventually drive up the Japanese population, but I do not think you can identify such a group today and realistically project (based on its size) that they would have a material impact on Japanese population growth before the end of the century. [As opposed to the other conversation about Israel, where such a group is easily identified, has grown to significant size, and may quite plausibly dominate Israeli demographics by the end of the century.]

My apologies if the post I responded to was a joke that I accidentally took seriously.