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Am I missing something obvious? How does after school study have any connection with birth rates? Is it something along the lines of "a less educated population

Am I missing something obvious? How does after school study have any connection with birth rates? Is it something along the lines of "a less educated population is more likely to have more children"?

sudosysgen 5y ago
There is a limited amount of entries to top universities. This kind of tutoring is thus a zero sum game for competition for limited college spots. Therefore, by cracking down on this industry, there is a chance to actually reduce the cost of raising a child, which is the main impediment to natality.
seanmcdirmid 5y ago
It contributes to the perceived expense and pressure of having a kid. Having kids in Chinese cities is really expensive due to all the extras parents are supposed to provide them with, the government is trying to eliminate those extras.
- toomuchtodo 5y ago
  It's crucial to mention the recent "lying flat" movement along with this idea. "The “lying flat” movement was jumpstarted in April when a post on Baidu titled “Lying Flat Is Justice” went viral on the platform. A manifesto of renunciation, the post shared the author’s lessons from two years of joblessness. The extraordinary stresses of contemporary life, the author concluded, were unnecessary, the product of the old-fashioned mindset of the previous generation. It was possible, even desirable, he argued, to find independence in resignation: “I can be like Diogenes, who sleeps in his own barrel taking in the sun.” Discussions about “lying flat” picked up pace in May, as young Chinese, over-worked and over-stressed, weighed the merits of relinquishing ambition, spurning effort, and refusing to bear hardship." The TLDR is that younger Chinese are burned out the with idea of working themselves to death at a chance for success, and as has happened with many first world countries, the cost of what is deemed success (homes, children) is too damn high. https://www.brookings.edu/techstream/the-lying-flat-movement-standing-in-the-way-of-chinas-innovation-drive/ https://www.brookings.edu/techstream/the-lying-flat-movement... https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-lying-flat-took-chinas-overworked-millennials-by-storm https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-lying-flat-took-chinas-ove... https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/03/world/asia/china-slackers-tangping.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/03/world/asia/china-slackers... https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/china-lying-flat-stress/2021/06/04/cef36902-c42f-11eb-89a4-b7ae22aa193e_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/china-lyin... https://qz.com/2019322/why-lying-flat-a-niche-chinese-millennial-meme-alarms-beijing/ https://qz.com/2019322/why-lying-flat-a-niche-chinese-millen... https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/lying-flat-gains-traction-in-china-as-youngsters-defy-norms-beijing-not-happy-101625542898189.html https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/lying-flat-gains-t... https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/05/the-low-desire-life-why-people-in-china-are-rejecting-high-pressure-jobs-in-favour-of-lying-flat https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/05/the-low-desire...
  - justicezyx 5y ago
    Lying flat is not related to tutoring directly. Of cuz, one can say that tutoring crams the students so that they are dilussioned of the value of education and further the societal doctrine. But it simply is not a good reasoning...
    - toomuchtodo 5y ago
      Lying flat is a symptom, as is for profit tutoring and the Chinese government banning it. The root cause is the culture [1] [2] and socioeconomic conditions [3] [4]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/996_working_hour_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/996_working_hour_system [2] https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/RAMJ-03-2021-0016/full/html https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/RAMJ-03-... [3] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-05-17/china-s-home-market-out-of-control-as-prices-climb-further https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-05-17/china-s-h... [4] https://www.reuters.com/world/china/cost-having-child-china-2021-06-01/ https://www.reuters.com/world/china/cost-having-child-china-...
    - numpad0 5y ago
      The description of “students joining Lying Flat Movement” sounds very like symptoms of burnout so I think it is fully related.
      - justicezyx 5y ago
        Sure, among 10s of millions of students, you can find such instances. News reporting are always focus on outliers, exceptional, and plain attention grabbing cases. I just talked to my friends back in China, they don't say anything about students being part of the movement.
        numpad0 5y ago
        What I’m saying is I don’t think it’s a “movement” as in some conspired extremist movement. If it was a movement the Chinese population is also suffering a “Mass Sleep Movement” every 8PM to 6AM. Burnout from stressful non-physical office works is a well established concept, though not yet widely agreed to also happen on kids. Basically if you keep a person in an office to attend meetings and conferences for 12 hours a day for 5-10 years, some functions of the brain ends its life and the person won’t be able to take on certain tasks. That’s what it is IMO.
galaxyLogic 5y ago
Sounds plausible. More educated people have less time for children, and they don't need children so much to take care of them later in life. But what this really sounds to me is that Chinese government is afraid of people getting smart and saying screw this totalitarianism.
- sudosysgen 5y ago
  I assure you, these kinds of schools where you repeat over and over the same math problems are not going to give you the perspective needed to consider a change of worldview which will make you reconsider your societal structure. They only grind you down and make you tired.
- akfanta 5y ago
  > Chinese government is afraid of people getting smart and saying screw this totalitarianism You people can really spin anything China related to a conspiracy. The Cold War propaganda machine has worked really well. Get a grip.
- nobody0 5y ago
  Educated != spend all your money and time on some math riddles (not even that useful for further higher math studies)
- AussieWog93 5y ago
  Cramming exam questions for 3 hours a night will not raise your standard of education, nor will it lead you to question authority. I think the other posters are right; it's an added expense for parents and a zero sum game. It's in nobody's interest to allow this to continue.
  - galaxyLogic 5y ago
    How is it a zero-sum game? When one person learns more it does not mean others will learn less. The opposite is true, the person who learns can then teach others. The government should be able to provide enough education to anyone who needs it. But to do that they need many teachers. Somebody must educate the teachers. More learning overall grows the intellectual capacity of the whole nation, it is not a zero-sum game. I seriously think this is about Chinese Government not wanting its population to be educated in Western values.
nobody0 5y ago
It's about costs, it is very expensive to attend those private classes. And if other kids are doing it, some parents may have to do it as well. From the stories, the gov't may provide some mooc-like platform for students to learn more subjects. Like many developed countries have done, birth rates boosting is often hard to achieve.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

Am I missing something obvious? How does after school study have any connection with birth rates? Is it something along the lines of "a less educated population is more likely to have more children"?

sudosysgen 5y ago

There is a limited amount of entries to top universities. This kind of tutoring is thus a zero sum game for competition for limited college spots. Therefore, by cracking down on this industry, there is a chance to actually reduce the cost of raising a child, which is the main impediment to natality.

seanmcdirmid 5y ago

It contributes to the perceived expense and pressure of having a kid. Having kids in Chinese cities is really expensive due to all the extras parents are supposed to provide them with, the government is trying to eliminate those extras.

toomuchtodo 5y ago
It's crucial to mention the recent "lying flat" movement along with this idea. "The “lying flat” movement was jumpstarted in April when a post on Baidu titled “Lying Flat Is Justice” went viral on the platform. A manifesto of renunciation, the post shared the author’s lessons from two years of joblessness. The extraordinary stresses of contemporary life, the author concluded, were unnecessary, the product of the old-fashioned mindset of the previous generation. It was possible, even desirable, he argued, to find independence in resignation: “I can be like Diogenes, who sleeps in his own barrel taking in the sun.” Discussions about “lying flat” picked up pace in May, as young Chinese, over-worked and over-stressed, weighed the merits of relinquishing ambition, spurning effort, and refusing to bear hardship." The TLDR is that younger Chinese are burned out the with idea of working themselves to death at a chance for success, and as has happened with many first world countries, the cost of what is deemed success (homes, children) is too damn high. https://www.brookings.edu/techstream/the-lying-flat-movement-standing-in-the-way-of-chinas-innovation-drive/ https://www.brookings.edu/techstream/the-lying-flat-movement... https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-lying-flat-took-chinas-overworked-millennials-by-storm https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-lying-flat-took-chinas-ove... https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/03/world/asia/china-slackers-tangping.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/03/world/asia/china-slackers... https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/china-lying-flat-stress/2021/06/04/cef36902-c42f-11eb-89a4-b7ae22aa193e_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/china-lyin... https://qz.com/2019322/why-lying-flat-a-niche-chinese-millennial-meme-alarms-beijing/ https://qz.com/2019322/why-lying-flat-a-niche-chinese-millen... https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/lying-flat-gains-traction-in-china-as-youngsters-defy-norms-beijing-not-happy-101625542898189.html https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/lying-flat-gains-t... https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/05/the-low-desire-life-why-people-in-china-are-rejecting-high-pressure-jobs-in-favour-of-lying-flat https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/05/the-low-desire...
- justicezyx 5y ago
  Lying flat is not related to tutoring directly. Of cuz, one can say that tutoring crams the students so that they are dilussioned of the value of education and further the societal doctrine. But it simply is not a good reasoning...
  - toomuchtodo 5y ago
    Lying flat is a symptom, as is for profit tutoring and the Chinese government banning it. The root cause is the culture [1] [2] and socioeconomic conditions [3] [4]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/996_working_hour_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/996_working_hour_system [2] https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/RAMJ-03-2021-0016/full/html https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/RAMJ-03-... [3] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-05-17/china-s-home-market-out-of-control-as-prices-climb-further https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-05-17/china-s-h... [4] https://www.reuters.com/world/china/cost-having-child-china-2021-06-01/ https://www.reuters.com/world/china/cost-having-child-china-...
  - numpad0 5y ago
    The description of “students joining Lying Flat Movement” sounds very like symptoms of burnout so I think it is fully related.
    - justicezyx 5y ago
      Sure, among 10s of millions of students, you can find such instances. News reporting are always focus on outliers, exceptional, and plain attention grabbing cases. I just talked to my friends back in China, they don't say anything about students being part of the movement.
      - numpad0 5y ago
        What I’m saying is I don’t think it’s a “movement” as in some conspired extremist movement. If it was a movement the Chinese population is also suffering a “Mass Sleep Movement” every 8PM to 6AM. Burnout from stressful non-physical office works is a well established concept, though not yet widely agreed to also happen on kids. Basically if you keep a person in an office to attend meetings and conferences for 12 hours a day for 5-10 years, some functions of the brain ends its life and the person won’t be able to take on certain tasks. That’s what it is IMO.

galaxyLogic 5y ago

Sounds plausible. More educated people have less time for children, and they don't need children so much to take care of them later in life. But what this really sounds to me is that Chinese government is afraid of people getting smart and saying screw this totalitarianism.

sudosysgen 5y ago
I assure you, these kinds of schools where you repeat over and over the same math problems are not going to give you the perspective needed to consider a change of worldview which will make you reconsider your societal structure. They only grind you down and make you tired.
akfanta 5y ago
> Chinese government is afraid of people getting smart and saying screw this totalitarianism You people can really spin anything China related to a conspiracy. The Cold War propaganda machine has worked really well. Get a grip.
nobody0 5y ago
Educated != spend all your money and time on some math riddles (not even that useful for further higher math studies)
AussieWog93 5y ago
Cramming exam questions for 3 hours a night will not raise your standard of education, nor will it lead you to question authority. I think the other posters are right; it's an added expense for parents and a zero sum game. It's in nobody's interest to allow this to continue.
- galaxyLogic 5y ago
  How is it a zero-sum game? When one person learns more it does not mean others will learn less. The opposite is true, the person who learns can then teach others. The government should be able to provide enough education to anyone who needs it. But to do that they need many teachers. Somebody must educate the teachers. More learning overall grows the intellectual capacity of the whole nation, it is not a zero-sum game. I seriously think this is about Chinese Government not wanting its population to be educated in Western values.

nobody0 5y ago

It's about costs, it is very expensive to attend those private classes. And if other kids are doing it, some parents may have to do it as well. From the stories, the gov't may provide some mooc-like platform for students to learn more subjects. Like many developed countries have done, birth rates boosting is often hard to achieve.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]