China demographics thread.

DarkStar

Junior Member
Registered Member
If there is to be immigration, China should only accept young females of childbearing age and only if they are on spouse visas to Chinese men.
Adding foreign men is simply asking for trouble as the spate of rape gangs in europe has proven.
 
D

Deleted member 15949

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Immigration is a thorny problem. China is mostly populated by 1 major ethnicity. If it starts getting more immigrants from around the world it could destabilise the country, which is a big no-no for the CPC.
Doubt it. Tell me about the instability in California or Texas which went from majority white to majority Hispanic. Oh Nope.
As you later said, I think maybe only SEAsians could be considered, and even then maybe Japan and S.Korea as they would already be rich and thus are highly educated.
Yeah, agred.
IMO it is a bit early to talk about any potential immigration. The Chinese Gov has already started taking serious measures to ease the pressure on children and parents. I am expecting a lot more measures to be rolled out in the near future.
We will probably need to wait max 3-4 years to see if there is any effect. If it doesn't, then thats when the immigration will be seriously considered.
Immigration is useful always and there should be baseline rates but it should be considered now, just because it takes time to draft laws and in 3-4 years and then you fix it, then you are wasting time
 

gadgetcool5

Senior Member
Registered Member
Immigration is no solution at all.

First of all, in the last five years alone, China's births dropped by about 8 million. The total births in all of Southeast Asia per year is only about 11 million. How are you going to get 70% of the childbearing women in Southeast Asia to move to China? You're not. You're talking orders of magnitude a far greater migration than the US/West has welcomed, and the US/West has a higher per capita GDP to attract migrants. Besides, Southeast Asian countries are mostly at replacement level births and in some cases below it already, they need those babies to support their own economies. Japan and South Korea are in even worse shape.

Second of all, even if you get hundreds of millions of new immigrants, if they assimilate into a Chinese culture where a TFR of 1 or lower is the norm, then you're just going to have the same problem again in a few years. China's problem isn't that it's total population is too small but that it's annual birth rate is too low and unstable.

Simply put, there is no substitute for stabilizing its TFR above 2 for China. IMO China has hardly scratched the surface on the pro-natalist measures that should be taken. For instance

* If a married couple under 30 buys a house, they get it 10% paid off. If they have one child within three years, it is 25% paid off, if they have two children within five years, it is 50% paid off, if they have three children within seven years, it is 75% paid off.

* Parents are subject to lower tax rates across the board, greater social security benefits, rent subsidies, and offered free 24 hour childcare. Young people with multiple siblings are offered preferential treatment in entrance to competitive colleges similar to how ethnic minorities receive them.

* Employers who employ a greater percentage of parents within their workforce are given massive tax breaks. The more children their employees have, the more tax breaks and subsidies they get. Further, all parental leave is compensated.

In short, it requires spending money, and a lot of it. Another means is promoting entertainment and TV shows where having multiple children is the norm. Basically, there is a lot you can do. People need to recognize that modern society is completely different than traditional society. At that time, having children was an asset because of child labor and the fact that children stayed with the family and became the family's labor force essentially, then took care of parents in old age. Now society has to transform again to sustain itself.
 

AndrewS

Brigadier
Registered Member
Immigration is a thorny problem. China is mostly populated by 1 major ethnicity. If it starts getting more immigrants from around the world it could destabilise the country, which is a big no-no for the CPC.

As you later said, I think maybe only SEAsians could be considered, and even then maybe Japan and S.Korea as they would already be rich and thus are highly educated.

IMO it is a bit early to talk about any potential immigration. The Chinese Gov has already started taking serious measures to ease the pressure on children and parents. I am expecting a lot more measures to be rolled out in the near future.
We will probably need to wait max 3-4 years to see if there is any effect. If it doesn't, then thats when the immigration will be seriously considered.

91% of the Chinese population is Han Chinese.
That means there are 126million who are an ethnic minority.
But each ethnic minority is outnumbered by 10 Han Chinese

Even if China implemented US levels of immigration (<20million per decade) - it wouldn't make much difference to China's ethnic composition.
 

Overbom

Brigadier
Registered Member
Doubt it. Tell me about the instability in California or Texas which went from majority white to majority Hispanic. Oh Nope
Thats different. The US and China have entirely different political systems, cultures and mindsets. There is no way that something in this scale could happen in China without any instability for at (if ever) minimum 50 years at least.

Also California and Texas have a lot of problems due to immigration. Maybe the media dont admit it but they certainly exist

but it should be considered now, just because it takes time to draft laws and in 3-4 years and then you fix it, then you are wasting time
Ideally this process should had started 5 years ago so that by today we would know if fertility had been increased. I feel that by 2025 it will be too late to consider immigration but thats how politics work

I dont think that the Gov or the society will consider any kind or form of immigration before having proof that the measures taken haven't being shown to increase TFR.

Even if it would take time, it is important for China to form a consensus on immigration instead of rushing it and creating discontent in the people
 

Overbom

Brigadier
Registered Member
Even if China implemented US levels of immigration (<20million per decade) - it wouldn't make much difference to China's ethnic composition
Yes but how would China integrate so many people?

It would need to ensure that these people know Chinese, same cultural values (SEAsians), CPC authority, forget their Democratic values, stop them from getting influenced from foreign influence operations etc.

Honestly, its a lot of trouble. I cant imagine immigration coming from any other region than SEA. And even then there are still dozens of issues and problems in order to ensure a safe and functional immigrant population.

Thats why I emphasise forming a consensus among the society before starting it as it would seriously strain local resources and increase competition to their areas which would inevitably lead to discontent among the local population.

This already happens with rural workers going to urban regions and they face discontent and some opposition from the locals there. Can you imagine if you also put some foreigners there..
 

Appix

Senior Member
Registered Member
No low fertility state has solved this problem. Low fertility is linked with what we call urbanization and the 'modern' way of life. We procreatred like madness in the poor rural days. These days we have become pandas. Maybe we need to start building breeding centers for ourselves. Damn.
 
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sndef888

Senior Member
Registered Member
No low fertility state has solved this problem. Low fertility is linked with what we call urbanization and the 'modern' way of life. We procreatred like madness in the poor rural days. These days we have become pandas. Maybe we need to start building breeding centers for ourselves. Damn.
Well, China seems different enough from the other examples that it may be able to solve it

No other example has a government like China's where they can basically dictate policies and whole industries (tuition for example)

No other example is as large as China. Singapore, Korea, Japan are basically entirely urban, whereas I doubt China will be much more over 70%. The rural core is very important for keeping births high. All China needs is to entice young people to live the rural life instead of moving to cities for factory work
 

Totoro

Major
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* If a married couple under 30 buys a house, they get it 10% paid off. If they have one child within three years, it is 25% paid off, if they have two children within five years, it is 50% paid off, if they have three children within seven years, it is 75% paid off.
So, if the desired effect, for example, is to have zero population loss or zero growth, keeping population at 1.4 billion, there's a shortfall of 400 million newborns in the next 76 years (average life expectancy).

Lets say the average number of children somehow gets to 2 per couple. That's 6 million houses for the current birth rate. And 9 million houses if the birthrate jumps to such levels that 1,4 billion population is to be kept in the long run.

Lets say the average couple gets 50% discount. If the average price of a home for 4 people (80 sq m?) is 200 000 USD (that may be too low) then the state is to pay 100 000 USD for each of those who buy a home and have children.

Now, I know people will say "but not all will buy houses". Not all will, true. But there will be a lot of those who, even though they have a home from before, still buy a new home just to enjoy the cheap real estate. That will in turn make the prices jump up. Just the fact that the state is pumping so much money into real estate will make the commercial prices skyrocket.

If for example none of the people that currently have babies buy homes, but all of the people that'd be required to get to 1.4 billion people buy homes, that's 3 million extra homes per year. 100 000 USD per home coming from the state, so in total that's 300 billion USD in the first year. In the following years it will be more, as the prices will, as suggested, skyrocket. It will raise much quicker than the GDP or federal budget.

* Parents are subject to lower tax rates across the board, greater social security benefits, rent subsidies, and offered free 24 hour childcare. Young people with multiple siblings are offered preferential treatment in entrance to competitive colleges similar to how ethnic minorities receive them.
If i am looking at numbers correctly, average gross salary in china is 49 000 USD a year, and average net salary is 38 000 USD. (i may be way off, so please correct me) So the average tax in that example is 20%. Lets say a 5% tax break would be enough to make a difference to people. (that too is highly debatable). So thats 2750 USD times 18 million people. (9 million homes) That's another 50 billion USD a year.
I've no idea how much would greater social security benefits and rent subsidies cost. But lets say they're minimal and amount to just 50 billion per year, extra.
24 hour free childcare??
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this article, if i am reading it right, suggests that one city, a more expensive one, forks out 220 to 330 USD per month per kid. Parents still have to pay 120 to 180 USD per kid. Lets just say that to go free it'd be 150 USD, for 10 or so hours (24 hours seems just way, WAY too unrealistic). Lets say the average kindergarten doesn't cost so much but half as much. And that ALL the kindergartens already have that much subsidy. Which is extremely unlikely. So 75 USD per child per month, with 9 million new children per year (and 6 years worth of children) gives us 54 million kids annually that the state must pay additional 900 USD per year. That's another 50 billion USD.

* Employers who employ a greater percentage of parents within their workforce are given massive tax breaks. The more children their employees have, the more tax breaks and subsidies they get. Further, all parental leave is compensated.

I'm slowly getting tired but all this sounds like hundreds of billions of USD more per year, even with modest tax breaks. Not sure what massive tax breaks would entail. And how is this different from the earlier personal income tax break? Are these company income taxes, being lowered?

In short, it requires spending money, and a lot of it.
Yes, probably at the very least 500 to 1000 billion USD per year of extra expenses. Current Chinese federal expenses are 5400 billion USD per year. So we're looking at close to 20% increase. Such a jump would be so unheard of that no budget or no country could survive it. Cutting expenses elsewhere to get so much money would be next to impossible in a short time frame. Maybe, maaaybe in a decade or two such budget could be achieved. But I don't think it'd be sooner than that.

And even so... there's no guarantee so much money would result in 50% more babies being suddenly born, and kept being born for decades to come.
 
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