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Burying ‘One Child’ Limits, China Pushes Women to Have More Babies
- mc32 8y ago>To put it bluntly, the birth of a baby is not only a matter of the family itself, but also a state affair,” the official newspaper People’s Daily said Lest anyone think otherwise, thd regime remains deeply authoritarian and has echoes of early 20th cent. Progressive thinking from Europe and elsewhere.
- Leary 8y agoIndeed, the brilliant people that came up with the One Child Policy were influenced by the environmentalists in the 70s. "Although the fertility rate began to decline, the Chinese government observed the global debate over a possible overpopulation catastrophe suggested by organizations such as Club of Rome and Sierra Club. While visiting Europe in 1979, one of the top Chinese officials, Song Jian, read two influential books of the movement, The Limits to Growth and A Blueprint for Survival. With a group of mathematicians, Song determined the correct population of China to be 700 million. A plan was prepared to reduce China's population to the desired level by 2080, with the one-child policy as one of the main instruments of social engineering." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-child_policy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-child_policy
- rayiner 8y agoThe idea that baby production is a community concern (it is literally perpetuation of the community) is nearly universal. Modern western society is the outlier in treating it as a personal affair. (And even in the U.S., people who "choose" not to have kids are viewed skeptically.)
- mc32 8y agoYeah but progressivism and accompanying eugenics of early 20th cent were seen favorably by both intrawar Germany and the SU and importantly to be controlled by the central gov.
- pvg 8y agoYou went from a comment by an official about the state's interest in babies to progressivism, eugenics, soviets and Nazis. It's word salad trollery and you should, as they the thing says, 'eschew' it.
- mc32 8y agoThey all think they know best and want to tell people what to do.
- NeedMoreTea 8y agoThat really misrepresents it - eugenics was popular across much of the globe in the early 20th C, particularly in the USA. It was mainly the actions of Germany through the war that killed the idea off in the democratic nations in the postwar years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics_in_the_United_States
- Leary 8y agoDeclining demographics is not only a problem in China, but many countries in the world. Japan's government policies, for example, have had limited success. https://www.centreforpublicimpact.org/case-study/tackling-declining-birth-rate-japan/ https://www.centreforpublicimpact.org/case-study/tackling-de... China's backtrack is also reminiscent of Singapore's campaigns, which also had problems raising its fertility rate after its "Stop-at-Two" campaign in the 60s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_planning_in_Singapore https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_planning_in_Singapo... A side effect of encouraging more births in a patriarchal society such as China will be fewer selective female abortions.
- seanmcdirmid 8y agoAlso, South Korea just went through the same backtracking.
- Animats 8y agoChina's one-child policy was a huge success. They avoided a big population run-up in the gap the introduction of reasonably good medicine and a high enough standard of living that birth rates went down. India didn't do that. Now that China is developed enough that birth rates have gone down as a result, they've backed off on the one-child policy. It did its job. The country has a long history of famines. China's last famine was in 1985. Remember, China has limited arable land and many mouths.
- anonuser123456 8y agoBy the same measure, the great leap forward was a huge success.
- devoply 8y agoPerfectly balanced.
- dummyvariable 8y agoAs all things should be.
- dang 8y ago"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- pertymcpert 8y agoAnd what is the strongest possible interpretation? How are we supposed to follow that rule when it's subjective on what is strong and what is invalid reasoning?
- oxide 8y agoI think the point is to not criticize in bad faith. You are meant to use common sense and be the judge of what is and is not a bad faith criticism or arguement.
- NTDF9 8y agoI genuinely don't understand the constant push for population growth. Why does population need to keep growing? GDP? Paying taxes for some social benefits for the old? How is this sustainable? When does the ever increasing growth end?
- waterphone 8y agoSome see it as a cultural arms race. A "the other cultures aren't stopping having children, so we need to out-populate them!" sort of deal. What the fuck is with the idiotic voting going on here lately? Every single comment I make, many simply pointing out facts or objectively mentioning something uncontroversial, is getting downvoted lately. What I said in this comment is absolutely the mindset of a lot of people. I am not one of those people.
- monocasa 8y agoFor an example of this see the quiverfull movement in the US. Those "N Kids and Counting" shows were about members of the quiverfull movement. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quiverfull https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quiverfull
- reaperducer 8y agoThe linked article shows the number of "quiverfull" people is less than a rounding error: 0.0025%. So, not so much a "movement" as a reality TV show.
- monocasa 8y agoThey're the explicit part of a larger idea. I grew up Baptist, and remember the preacher explicitly making the same argument. There just were not a lot of people who defined their identity around it; they still internalized the idea though.
- toasterlovin 8y agoThe nature of exponential growth is that it doesn’t really matter that much how small the starting number is. You quickly end up with a big number no mattwr what.
- hn_throwaway_99 8y agoOnce mass urbanization takes hold, it is especially difficult to counteract declining birth rates. This is especially true in highly patriarchal societies like China, Japan, and Italy, where motherhood and career is much more of an "either/or" proposition and where men are much less likely to help out with housework.
- seanmcdirmid 8y agoClassing China in with Japan and Italy on this is weird and probably incorrect. Chinese women generally work after having kids, and take advantages of lots of child care resources missing from the other two countries (grand parents, lots of daycare/kindergartens). Chinese (especially Shanghainese) men are more likely to be henpecked, and they will do house work.
- jernfrost 8y agoI wonder if China will be forced to encourage immigration. Illegal immigration is apparently already growing rapidly. Companies can’t find workers anymore so they start smuggling in people to do the job At some point this illegal stream will become so large that one has to consider legalization.
- toomuchtodo 8y agoAutomation will always be a superior option to immigration. You own the tech you develop, and you don’t have to be comfortable with your nation’s culture changing due to mass immigration. Japan is starting to crack a bit on this front (allowing immigrants in), but China has the resources to see such a policy succeed. It also behooves them to develop these technologies as part of their China 2025 campaign.
- gambiting 8y agoWhat's cheaper - a Burger-Flip'O-Tron for a million dollars + an expensive maintenance contract, or a $500/month migrant worker who you can replace for any reason whatsoever and find another one happy to take their job? Remember that in those countries labour is incredibly cheap and no, automation is not a superior option to immigration.
- lamarpye 8y agoIt's cheaper for your made-up model. I can make up one where it is more expensive.
- toomuchtodo 8y agoMigrants who don’t want to assimilate into your culture are far more expensive than the labor costs you’re saving.
- shard972 8y agoVery true, especially now when successful integration rates seems to be plummeting as we see 3rd generation immigrants reverting back to the anti-social behaviours that exist in the countries they come from. Also when you consider migrants are much more likely to send money back home, you have to ask what about the costs of having workers who don't then spend that money in your own economy? How can you have these multiplication effects if the money being made isn't even re-injected?
- lamarpye 8y agoI am here to help
- xuwu 8y agoIt is not because of one child policy that results in male babies birth rate higher than female’s. Actually，in China，this policy is not “powerful” to everyone，especially in poor area.however，birth rate in poor area is much severer（in many villages，it is possible that girls were killed when they were born）.In ancient times，birth rate was still not equal（sometimes even worse than today’ ）without one child policy.