China demographics thread.

[manqiangrexue]

But if you ask me about my assessment of China's population problem in the short and medium term, it is still very pessimistic.
China is currently facing a long-term extreme low birth rate, but the government is still wavering on what kind of birth policy to adopt. Even if it plans to adopt a welfare state model, it will take 25 years to pilot and gradually implement it, which completely misses the golden period of improving the birth rate. And I am also very skeptical about the strength of government incentives. Achieving or even surpassing the welfare model of Northern Europe in the mid-21st century requires full confidence, and the hidden single tax will also bring social conflicts.
The only fortunate thing is that the era of robots is likely to arrive in the 2030s, and China is almost certain to be the leader in the global robotics industry. This will effectively retain a part of China's manufacturing industry, while significantly reducing the cost of basic services and elderly care, and providing a buffer for the more severe aging and population decline in the second half of this century.

There is one policy I think that can have an immediate positive effect (although not strong enough to bring everything up to 2.0) and that is not only the decriminalization of surrogacy but the subsidization of it so that people who are in more average financial conditions can afford it.

China has a lot of people who get married in their mid-30's because they focused their youths on their careers. Humans are mostly barren by age 35, almost absolutely barren at age 40. It is shocking as a species to live to 90 and be reproductively dead at 40 because most animal species die not too long after losing fertility. Anyway, that means that there are a lot of couples in China aged almost 40 who are desperate to have kids. 35 year old couples will try cycle timing, all sorts of Chinese medicine, all the bullshit they can find on the internet, wasting their last 3-4 years of fertility before exploring IVF and thinking about surrogacy and by then, it's too late. A woman near 40 has a slim chance of even getting IVF+surrogacy to work because her body's not producing any more viable eggs.

The Chinese government needs to make it clear: if you are past 30, nothing will work other than IVF/surrogacy; do not waste any time trying anything else. If you hear a story about herbal medicine working for someone else, you just heard the story of a lottery winner; it has nothing to do with you. This needs to be on all ads shot up in between everyone's favorite shows and all the big billboards when driving. The recommendation needs to be to get married very shortly after college, maybe settling on your partner in your junior/senior year if you want a natural birth.

The timeline is as follows:
Ideal natural birth: age 20-25
Redline natural birth: age 25-28
IVF required: age 28-30
Redline IVF: age 30-32
IVF+surrogacy required: age 32-35
Hail Mary shot for a corpse to climb out of its tomb: age 35-39 IVF+surrogacy

I'm estimating down a bit for built in urgency. When I married my wife, she was 32. We did not try any natural ways to become pregnant; we headed right for the IFV clinic in Kazakhstan. People were surprised to see us because we were significantly younger than anyone else there and we looked young for our age as well so our translator told us that she was hearing people in the background ask why these 2 kids are here for IVF when everyone else was almost 40. But we made the right decision to waste no time at all. My wife produced 28 viable ovum in one round (I nicknamed her Spider Lady after that due to the massive number of eggs a spider would carry in its eggsack) when all around us were people hopeful that the 3 ovum they got after 4 rounds would produce a child and others in tears that they had done many rounds without a single viable egg because they where too old. It generally takes at least 4-5 ovum to produce one child since it needs to undergo successful fertilization into an embryo, the embryo then needs to pass genetic testing to be free from chromosomal rearrangement, then it needs to successfully implant in the mother without self-aborting in the coming 2-4 weeks. We met a Chinese couple there whom we really liked and headed out to dinner many times. They were 39 and 42; they were much richer than us, owning many properties in California and their careers were amazing as they were renown in their fields in China. But when the results were out, they sat there hollowed. No viable eggs could be obtained from the woman. Luckily, they already had a child and were going for the second, so we consoled them on that and didn't even dare mention that we had 28.

Unfortunately, the CCP is currently dismissing surrogacy as illegal under the excuse that some criminal organizations will create babies to harvest organs from. I think it's stupid.
1. Anyone willing to commit murder on an infant doesn't give a shit if surrogacy or even forced surrogacy with trafficking is illegal.
2. Murder is illegal; organ harvesting is illegal; forced surrogacy and human trafficking are illegal. Surrogacy is something else. This is like banning knives because people have been stabbed with them.
3. Even if this crime is unpreventable at this time, the needs of the nation for the next generation greatly supercede the moral risks.

That they don't see these obvious reasons leads me to suspect possible CIA infiltration and bribing amongst the decision makers on surrogacy policy in China.

 

[Nevermore]

There is one policy I think that can have an immediate positive effect (although not strong enough to bring everything up to 2.0) and that is not only the decriminalization of surrogacy but the subsidization of it.

China has a lot of people who get married in their mid-30's because they focused their youths on their careers. Humans are mostly barren by age 35, almost absolutely barren at age 40. It is shocking as a species to live to 90 and be reproductively dead at 40 because most animal species die not too long after losing fertility. Anyway, that means that there are a lot of couples in China aged almost 40 who are desperate to have kids. 35 year old couples will try cycle timing, all sorts of Chinese medicine, all the bullshit they can find on the internet, wasting their last 3-4 years of fertility before exploring IVF and thinking about surrogacy and by then, it's too late. A woman near 40 has a slim chance of even getting IVF+surrogacy to work because her body's not producing any more viable eggs.

The Chinese government needs to make it clear: if you are past 30, nothing will work other than IVF/surrogacy; do not waste any time trying anything else. This needs to be on all ads shot up in between everyone's favorite shows and all the big billboards when driving. The recommendation needs to be to get married very shortly after college, maybe settling on your partner in your junior/senior year if you want a natural birth.

The timeline is as follows:
Ideal natural birth: age 20-25
Redline natural birth: age 25-28
Ideal IVF: age 28-30
Redline IVF: age 30-32
IVF+surrogacy needed: age 32-35
Hail Mary shot for a corpse to climb out of its tomb: age 35-39 IVF+surrogacy

I'm estimating down a bit for built in urgency. When I married my wife, she was 32. We did not try any natural ways to become pregnant; we headed right for the IFV clinic in Kazakhstan. People were surprised to see us because we were significantly younger than anyone else there and we looked young too so our translator told us that she was hearing people in the background ask why these 2 kids are here for IVF when everyone else was almost 40. But we made the right decision to waste no time at all. We produced 28 viable embryo in one round when all around us were people hopeful that the 3 embryo they got after 4 rounds would produce a child and others in tears that they had done many rounds without a single viable egg because they where too old.

Unfortunately, the CCP is currently dismissing surrogacy as illegal under the excuse that some criminal organizations will create babies to harvest organs from. I think it's stupid.
1. Anyone willing to commit murder on an infant doesn't give a shit if surrogacy or even forced surrogacy with trafficking is illegal.
2. Murder is illegal; organ harvesting is illegal; forced surrogacy and human trafficking are illegal. Surrogacy is something else. This is like banning knives because people have been stabbed with them.
3. Even if this crime is unpreventable at this time, the needs of the nation for the next generation greatly supercede the moral risks.

That they don't see these obvious reasons leads me to suspect possible CIA infiltration and bribing amongst the decision makers on surrogacy policy in China.

Adopting surrogacy can reduce the pressure of childbirth on work hours and physical burden for women with conditions, and can also extend the time for childbirth to a certain extent, reducing workplace discrimination against women, which may increase the fertility rate to a certain extent. But even if we completely disregard the law, the cost and social acceptance of surrogacy still face great challenges, and this technology cannot solve problems such as housing prices, work pressure, parenting pressure, and so on. It is likely that the negative consequences of promoting surrogacy far outweigh the positive ones.
My cousin, who is about 40 years old, wanted to have a child through surrogacy a few years ago. His career was extremely successful, but he didn't want his wife to suffer the pain of childbirth, so he looked for many potential surrogacy channels. However, in the end, under legal pressure, he chose to let his wife give birth naturally.
This technology is more like an option for the wealthy in the future, and cannot be accepted by most women of childbearing age from ordinary families.

 

[fatzergling]

Adopting surrogacy can reduce the pressure of childbirth on work hours and physical burden for women with conditions, and can also extend the time for childbirth to a certain extent, reducing workplace discrimination against women, which may increase the fertility rate to a certain extent. But even if we completely disregard the law, the cost and social acceptance of surrogacy still face great challenges, and this technology cannot solve problems such as housing prices, work pressure, parenting pressure, and so on. It is likely that the negative consequences of promoting surrogacy far outweigh the positive ones.
My cousin, who is about 40 years old, wanted to have a child through surrogacy a few years ago. His career was extremely successful, but he didn't want his wife to suffer the pain of childbirth, so he looked for many potential surrogacy channels. However, in the end, under legal pressure, he chose to let his wife give birth naturally.
This technology is more like an option for the wealthy in the future, and cannot be accepted by most women of childbearing age from ordinary families.

Given that US surrogacy laws are more lax than Chinese surrogacy laws, do you see "surrogacy tourism" becoming a thing as China gets richer?

 

[Tomboy]

Given that US surrogacy laws are more lax than Chinese surrogacy laws, do you see "surrogacy tourism" becoming a thing as China gets richer?

Realistically only a small amount of wealthy elites will be able travel to the US for such "tourism". Alternative cheaper countries like Thailand etc do exist but IMO wouldn't trust anyone there for this.

 

[manqiangrexue]

Adopting surrogacy can reduce the pressure of childbirth on work hours and physical burden for women with conditions, and can also extend the time for childbirth to a certain extent, reducing workplace discrimination against women, which may increase the fertility rate to a certain extent.

Yes

But even if we completely disregard the law, the cost and social acceptance of surrogacy still face great challenges,

The cost is not so high in neighboring countries like Kazakhstan ($40-50K each, $25K during COVID). It is currently quite expensive in China because it is illegal but it will fall drastically in China if the CCP implement support for it, recruiting rural women. Social acceptance is only a problem because the government made it illegal. There is no natural reason to discriminate against a surrogate kid; they are completely normal and you wouldn't know unless they told you. They wouldn't know unless their parents told them.

and this technology cannot solve problems such as housing prices, work pressure, parenting pressure, and so on.

Those are not really issues. When Chinese people want something, we get it no matter what. Those difficulties are just excuses when the real reason is culture. People have been brainwashed into thinking that it is noble to be rich and highly educated but any commoner can have many children. When/if people re-affiliate having many kids with being successful, the fertility rate will skyrocket. Can't even stop it no matter what. In this new age, if people were having many kids and the CCP implemented a 1 Child Policy, then the government will be in danger of falling.

It is likely that the negative consequences of promoting surrogacy far outweigh the positive ones.

No. There are no negative consequences at all, only positives.

My cousin, who is about 40 years old, wanted to have a child through surrogacy a few years ago. His career was extremely successful, but he didn't want his wife to suffer the pain of childbirth, so he looked for many potential surrogacy channels. However, in the end, under legal pressure, he chose to let his wife give birth naturally.

I don't know how old his wife is but if she is over 30, then he is extremely lucky and it looks to me like if surrogacy were legal, he could have had a few kids and his wife wouldn't have had to suffer.

This technology is more like an option for the wealthy in the future, and cannot be accepted by most women of childbearing age from ordinary families.

IVF is not expensive; surrogacy is somewhat expensive but it is much cheaper than housing, similar to buying a car. Trade your car for a child. It's worth it.

Given that US surrogacy laws are more lax than Chinese surrogacy laws, do you see "surrogacy tourism" becoming a thing as China gets richer?

It would be stupid. Surrogacy in the US is more than 5X more expensive than in Kazakhstan, which is right next to China.

Realistically only a small amount of wealthy elites will be able travel to the US for such "tourism". Alternative cheaper countries like Thailand etc do exist but IMO wouldn't trust anyone there for this.

Thailand doesn't work. Surrogacy for foreigners is banned there eversince a Chinese couple from Australia abandoned a kid with Down Syndrome there. It was not their fault; the Thai testing system failed to catch this most common and obvious thing so they failed to abort. Doing surrogacy, you are guaranteed a kid without this defect. Kazakhstan is 100% trustworthy. I can vouch. One very common mistake is to think that the US healthcare sytem is more trustworthy since it is expensive and in a developed country. It is not. There are mistakes all the time and if they happen in the US, the clinic will use a team of lawyers to shut you down and send you out with nothing. If it happens in a country like Kazakhstan, they have something called, "Bad look on society" and they will do their best for you to correct it. Kyrgystan and Uzbekistan are also opening up.

 

[Nevermore]

Given that US surrogacy laws are more lax than Chinese surrogacy laws, do you see "surrogacy tourism" becoming a thing as China gets richer?

I think it is still a very rare choice. Because this requires these families to meet ethical acceptance, legal and economic conditions simultaneously.

 

[fatzergling]

Realistically only a small amount of wealthy elites will be able travel to the US for such "tourism". Alternative cheaper countries like Thailand etc do exist but IMO wouldn't trust anyone there for this.

This assumes current wealth levels for US and China, which may or may not hold in the next 30 years.

The timeline is as follows:
Ideal natural birth: age 20-25
Redline natural birth: age 25-28
IVF required: age 28-30
Redline IVF: age 30-32
IVF+surrogacy required: age 32-35
Hail Mary shot for a corpse to climb out of its tomb: age 35-39 IVF+surrogacy

There exists a contradiction between current society and the fertility window. As society becomes more complex, both men and women (due to gender equality) must invest more time into studying, accumulating capital, etc. However, there is currently no way to "push forward" the fertility window. As a result either,

1. Develop technology that can push the window forward
2. Bypass it with speculative technology (artificial womb)
3. Surrogacy

There is a fourth, far more terrible way that I rule out, which is regression to a less developed society.

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.

Agarian work does not require much education and is doable by illiterate slaves (see US south). This is not the case for modern work, which requires strong literacy, numeracy, and programming skills.
It is not that a child cannot benefit a family, it's that the child will take 20 years to start benefiting a family. Although modern welfare states have helped ameliorate portions of the cost, this long buildup time is still mostly subsidized by a parent's personal resources.
To add to that, the existence of common stock and bond ownership allows people to accumulate assets instead and retire without the need for large amounts of children (maybe 1 is enough to coordinate logistics).
The error of social conservatives is to try and claw back the past using the state mechanism: this is largely a failure historically. You have to acknowledge this new structure and build a mechanism that encourages child rearing through both hard and soft tactics.

 

[CMP]

It is not that a child cannot benefit a family, it's that the child will take 20 years to start benefiting a family.

Hard disagree here. In this day and age, children will not benefit any family until they're in their 50s or 60s and caring for their parents in their last 10 years of life. Even then, it's a questionable benefit to the parents given the same care can be coordinated via retirement home living, live-in care, etc. Especially given the cost (time, energy, and money) to raise people that will be successful in this era. Daycare, tutoring, after school programs, summer programs, college & grad school for masters, and then often even stacking law school, doctoral, or med/dental on top of grad school. That money could very well be invested in other things that start generating returns almost immediately.

In other words, there is no financial benefit to having children in this era. Emotional benefit is a weak argument given how most children do not really like their parents, and do not have time or desire to spend with them given the pressures of a modern career or business. It only makes sense to do so if you have a serious legacy to hand down, whether it's a serious business empire, estate, or other. Either that or if your genetics are such a significant legacy that it's worth handing down. The kind of exceptional beauty, brains, or Olympian athleticism that tend to generate their own massive returns by default. Otherwise you're just breeding the next generation of wage slaves, corporate slaves, or homeless people.

 

[august1]

Yes

The cost is not so high in neighboring countries like Kazakhstan ($40-50K each, $25K during COVID). It is currently quite expensive in China because it is illegal but it will fall drastically in China if the CCP implement support for it, recruiting rural women. Social acceptance is only a problem because the government made it illegal. There is no natural reason to discriminate against a surrogate kid; they are completely normal and you wouldn't know unless they told you. They wouldn't know unless their parents told them.

Those are not really issues. When Chinese people want something, we get it no matter what. Those difficulties are just excuses when the real reason is culture. People have been brainwashed into thinking that it is noble to be rich and highly educated but any commoner can have many children. When/if people re-affiliate having many kids with being successful, the fertility rate will skyrocket. Can't even stop it no matter what. In this new age, if people were having many kids and the CCP implemented a 1 Child Policy, then the government will be in danger of falling.

No. There are no negative consequences at all, only positives.

I don't know how old his wife is but if she is over 30, then he is extremely lucky and it looks to me like if surrogacy were legal, he could have had a few kids and his wife wouldn't have had to suffer.

IVF is not expensive; surrogacy is somewhat expensive but it is much cheaper than housing, similar to buying a car. Trade your car for a child. It's worth it.

It would be stupid. Surrogacy in the US is more than 5X more expensive than in Kazakhstan, which is right next to China.

Thailand doesn't work. Surrogacy for foreigners is banned there eversince a Chinese couple from Australia abandoned a kid with Down Syndrome there. It was not their fault; the Thai testing system failed to catch this most common and obvious thing so they failed to abort. Doing surrogacy, you are guaranteed a kid without this defect. Kazakhstan is 100% trustworthy. I can vouch. One very common mistake is to think that the US healthcare sytem is more trustworthy since it is expensive and in a developed country. It is not. There are mistakes all the time and if they happen in the US, the clinic will use a team of lawyers to shut you down and send you out with nothing. If it happens in a country like Kazakhstan, they have something called, "Bad look on society" and they will do their best for you to correct it. Kyrgystan and Uzbekistan are also opening up.

I think there's a bit of conformation bias in your analysis when it comes to how much of an impact surrogacy can play in increasing China's fertility rate. Not only is surrogacy expensive, it's also physically painful and time-consuming for the egg donor, and you need to have the desire for children in the first place. That desire is rapidly going the way of the dodo amongst China's (and the rest of the world's) youth. There are too many everyday pressures and alternative lifestyle choices available instead of having children these days.

 

[manqiangrexue]

I think there's a bit of conformation bias in your analysis when it comes to how much of an impact surrogacy can play in increasing China's fertility rate. Not only is surrogacy expensive, it's also physically painful and time-consuming for the egg donor, and you need to have the desire for children in the first place. That desire is rapidly going the way of the dodo amongst China's (and the rest of the world's) youth. There are too many everyday pressures and alternative lifestyle choices available instead of having children these days.

We don't know that because it is illegal in China. But I do know I've met many many Chinese couples in Kazakhstan trying to make surrogacy work. When we go to a Chinese restaurant in Kaz, at least somebody will ask how old our baby is and how my wife looks totally unphased. When I say, 10 days old, by surrogacy, we are surrounded by interest, many tables of people coming over to chat about our experience, how much it is, how long it takes, whether they can be referred. So I know it wouldn't be a huge number compared to the population of China, but this is a solution that can help many people nonetheless and it is good for everyone. It's good for the couple since they get to have kids, it's good for the country since more kids will be born, and it's good for the surrogate mother since she gets paid, giving her a chance to get out of poverty.