Friday, 19 January 2024
The unstoppable trend
Michael Cook has an interesting Mercator piece on the declining population of China. Familiar enough, but one of those issues where the present is a plausible guide to the future and for China it doesn't look good.
China is failing to persuade women to have more children. Or any children
China’s population has declined for the second year in a row, despite desperate government incentives to persuade women to have children. In 2023, the number of people fell by 2.08 million to 1.410 billion. The number of births fell by 500,000.
This year, 2024, could see a temporary recovery. A demographer noted in the official newspaper, the Global Times, that this is the Year of the Dragon, a year in which couples traditionally try to conceive a child. But demographers agree that the trend downwards is unstoppable.
The whole piece is well worth reading, population decline being one of the main political justifications for mass immigration.
The New York Times pointed out that “History suggests that once a country crosses the threshold of negative population growth, there is little that its government can do to reverse it. And as a country’s population grows more top-heavy, a smaller, younger generation bears the increasing costs of caring for a larger, older one.” China’s problem is particularly acute. Other advanced countries like Australia, Germany, or the United States have offset low birth rates with immigration. But immigration into China is negligible.
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5 comments:
Perhaps China will have to take the Africans.
More generally, it might be that declining birth rates world-wide are unstoppable. Few women want to spend most of their lives pregnant or lactating. It might force us to adopt new economic models that don't rely on an ever-increasing pool of cheap labour.
I'm relatively relaxed about the 'demographic crisis'. Yes, there will be a decade or two when there are too many old people for previous levels of care (perhaps eased with care robots and collective care homes), but eventually a new steady state will emerge.
Obviously the Government is worried that there will be fewer people to tax and boss about, but half the current population (say) means that the problems of resource depletion and climate change are much reduced too.
I snort in derision at the idea that you can demonise men and encourage women to have careers and push up the cost of homes without there being some impact on the numbers of children being born. Perhaps those consequences should have been managed better...
Sam - I suppose the thinking is that if birth rates don't return to replacement levels then the decline will just continue until the developed world is no more.
DJ - I'm relaxed because I've reached an age where I won't see the consequences, but if birth rates don't return to replacement levels at some point, there will be no steady state. I agree, you can't demonise men and encourage women to work to afford the mortgage without an effect on birth rates. Rolling that back seems problematic, but I think that's what Net Zero is about.
Net Zero about? Intentional or coincidental?
Tammly - I'd say it's a consequence of a Malthusian outlook, so intentional in that sense.
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