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I think this is totally wrong. China shifted their "one child" policy to "two children" but it only increased the birth rate to 1.6, and 2.1 is needed for stabi

I think this is totally wrong. China shifted their "one child" policy to "two children" but it only increased the birth rate to 1.6, and 2.1 is needed for stability [1]. It is true that birth rates decline as women gain reproductive rights, but I don't think that's what's happening in China. [1]: https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/07/asia/china-population-decline-study-intl/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/07/asia/china-population-decline...

maxerickson 6y ago
I'm not sure you understood what I meant by 'development'. In poor 1980 China, population was exploding with draconian policies in place. In better off 2020 China, population is set to decline, the still draconian government policy doesn't really matter.
- camgunz 6y ago
  I'm still unclear what you're pointing to re: development. I think maybe you're saying their baby boom is over because their economy has developed? You make 2 claims: population of the poor in the 1980s was exploding despite the one child policy, and the draconian government policy doesn't really matter in 2020. It looks like your first claim isn't born out by the data [1]; it's hard to find "poor" population growth vs. non-poor, but rural vs. urban doesn't seem like an unrelated approximation. You can see that urban population was growing at a far faster rate than rural, which is pretty close to flat. Certainly it's likely that a lot of this is the rapid urbanization of China, but either way it doesn't seem like the population of the poor was exploding in the 1980s. Re: the one child policy not mattering, birth rates were already on the decline before the one-child policy was adopted, and that's likely due to China's family planning initiative in the 70s [2]. And if you look at the Reuters graph, it really does look like that's the defining effect here (birth rates mostly leveled off after the initial steep decline, even after the one child policy was adopted). This isn't 2020-specific, but I think the broader context is more relevant. (I wasn't aware China had this family planning initiative until just now so, I was wrong above). So I still think the dynamic that most controls birth rates are women's access to birth control and status of their reproductive rights. [1]: http://blogs.reuters.com/data-dive/2013/11/18/chinas-one-child-policy-policy-in-charts/ http://blogs.reuters.com/data-dive/2013/11/18/chinas-one-chi... [2]: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22176797/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22176797/
  - maxerickson 6y ago
    Nearly everyone in 1980 China was poor compared to 2020. Compare the PPP column at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_GDP_of_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_GDP_of_China (so that's adjusting for inflation and local production and so on...). So the "poor" group is all of China in the 1980s. I'm talking about the two child policy not mattering now, because few people are having more than 1 or 2 children. The policy likely mattered more when birth rates were higher (birth rates declined prior to 1980, but then leveled off, in the face of policy meant to discourage births): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_China#/media/File:Birth_rate_in_China.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_China#/media/F...
    - camgunz 6y ago
      It still seems to me that you're working backwards from your hypothesis a little. For example, that Wikipedia article doesn't even have PPP numbers from before 1980, when birth rates first started to decline (again, likely due to the reproductive education campaign). You're doing a post hoc ergo propter hoc thing here. China's GDP increased dramaticaly, China's birth rates decreased dramatically afterwards, therefore birth rates decreased because GDP increased. In order for your claim to stand you at least have to narrow it significantly to "birth rates in China went through the floor once poverty decreased past a certain point", otherwise you have to explain why birth rates didn't subsequently fluctuate inversely with GDP. Further, you also would have to explain why male births so dramatically outnumber female births. But I think more concretely, the timeline doesn't match. China didn't get above $1000 PPP until ~1990, and at that rate their birth rates should still have been very high [1]. However they'd been under 3 for 10 years at that point [2]. It's much simpler to say that China told people how to not have kids in 1970, the one/two child policies held the birth rate down subsequently, and couples took drastic measures to predominately have male children while also staying under the limit in order to satisfy a sexist culture. That's a more direct, parsimonious, and complete explanation, whereas the GDP argument has to also show why the reproductive education campaign and one/two child policies did effectively nothing, why birth rates fell dramatically before the Chinese people saw significant economic development, and why couples worked very hard to primarily have male children--work that weirdly also had no influence on the birth rate. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_and_fertility https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_and_fertility [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_China#Table_of_births_and_deaths_1950%E2%80%932019 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_China#Table_of...

maxerickson 6y ago

I'm not sure you understood what I meant by 'development'. In poor 1980 China, population was exploding with draconian policies in place. In better off 2020 China, population is set to decline, the still draconian government policy doesn't really matter.

camgunz 6y ago
I'm still unclear what you're pointing to re: development. I think maybe you're saying their baby boom is over because their economy has developed? You make 2 claims: population of the poor in the 1980s was exploding despite the one child policy, and the draconian government policy doesn't really matter in 2020. It looks like your first claim isn't born out by the data [1]; it's hard to find "poor" population growth vs. non-poor, but rural vs. urban doesn't seem like an unrelated approximation. You can see that urban population was growing at a far faster rate than rural, which is pretty close to flat. Certainly it's likely that a lot of this is the rapid urbanization of China, but either way it doesn't seem like the population of the poor was exploding in the 1980s. Re: the one child policy not mattering, birth rates were already on the decline before the one-child policy was adopted, and that's likely due to China's family planning initiative in the 70s [2]. And if you look at the Reuters graph, it really does look like that's the defining effect here (birth rates mostly leveled off after the initial steep decline, even after the one child policy was adopted). This isn't 2020-specific, but I think the broader context is more relevant. (I wasn't aware China had this family planning initiative until just now so, I was wrong above). So I still think the dynamic that most controls birth rates are women's access to birth control and status of their reproductive rights. [1]: http://blogs.reuters.com/data-dive/2013/11/18/chinas-one-child-policy-policy-in-charts/ http://blogs.reuters.com/data-dive/2013/11/18/chinas-one-chi... [2]: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22176797/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22176797/
- maxerickson 6y ago
  Nearly everyone in 1980 China was poor compared to 2020. Compare the PPP column at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_GDP_of_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_GDP_of_China (so that's adjusting for inflation and local production and so on...). So the "poor" group is all of China in the 1980s. I'm talking about the two child policy not mattering now, because few people are having more than 1 or 2 children. The policy likely mattered more when birth rates were higher (birth rates declined prior to 1980, but then leveled off, in the face of policy meant to discourage births): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_China#/media/File:Birth_rate_in_China.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_China#/media/F...
  - camgunz 6y ago
    It still seems to me that you're working backwards from your hypothesis a little. For example, that Wikipedia article doesn't even have PPP numbers from before 1980, when birth rates first started to decline (again, likely due to the reproductive education campaign). You're doing a post hoc ergo propter hoc thing here. China's GDP increased dramaticaly, China's birth rates decreased dramatically afterwards, therefore birth rates decreased because GDP increased. In order for your claim to stand you at least have to narrow it significantly to "birth rates in China went through the floor once poverty decreased past a certain point", otherwise you have to explain why birth rates didn't subsequently fluctuate inversely with GDP. Further, you also would have to explain why male births so dramatically outnumber female births. But I think more concretely, the timeline doesn't match. China didn't get above $1000 PPP until ~1990, and at that rate their birth rates should still have been very high [1]. However they'd been under 3 for 10 years at that point [2]. It's much simpler to say that China told people how to not have kids in 1970, the one/two child policies held the birth rate down subsequently, and couples took drastic measures to predominately have male children while also staying under the limit in order to satisfy a sexist culture. That's a more direct, parsimonious, and complete explanation, whereas the GDP argument has to also show why the reproductive education campaign and one/two child policies did effectively nothing, why birth rates fell dramatically before the Chinese people saw significant economic development, and why couples worked very hard to primarily have male children--work that weirdly also had no influence on the birth rate. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_and_fertility https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_and_fertility [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_China#Table_of_births_and_deaths_1950%E2%80%932019 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_China#Table_of...