6 ms·

China’s Population Falls, Heralding a Demographic Crisis

17 points by cardamomo 4y ago

haltingproblem 4y ago
I am quite befuddled by the claims of the demographic crisis, did Chinese planners not forsee this since population dynamics models are relatively straightforward compared to say, epidemiological or climate models. Chinese Academies are quite good. Is this fear mongering by a spirited cadre of believers who might be most likely wrong or a very likely outcome?
- amalgamated_inc 4y ago
  > Chinese Academies are quite good Almost like it doesn't matter how good your academics are in a communist dictatorship :) If only we had an example of one such communist dictatorship collapsing despite all their genius planners..
- verdverm 4y ago
  There are several outlets predicting a 50% population decline by the end of the century, but it is generally a well known issue tied to the 1-child policy and the more general pattern of higher living standard tied to lower birth rates. The Chinese are now having fewer children and waiting longer, much like most other advanced economies. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/12/05/key-facts-about-chinas-declining-population/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/12/05/key-facts-a... The "crisis" is tied to a population age distribution skewed towards the older, so you have fewer people working and supporting a growing number of retirees.
- hindsightbias 4y ago
  Idk why this is news, fertility and one-child policy outcomes have been obvious for over a decade “Clearly, the situation is becoming urgent. Already the country's population is ageing fast. The first children born under the one-child policy face the prospect of caring for an ever-increasing number of pensioners.” https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-pacific-11404623 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-pacific-11404623 “Analysis in Laxenburg, Austria, predicts that the ratio of over-65s to 15-to-65-year-olds in China will increase almost threefold between 2010 and 2035. That means for each person over 65 there will be just three working-age people, compared to 10 today” - 2007 https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19626291-800-china-special-one-child-one-big-problem/ https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19626291-800-china-sp...
  - haltingproblem 4y ago
    My question was why did the Chinese intelligentsia not foresee this 20 years ago (2000s) or 30 years ago (1990s) rather than over the past 5-10 years. Even now they don't seem to be attacking it with any vigor.
- Andaith 4y ago
  As everyone is saying, demographic models are relatively straightforward. So everyone involved in decision making should have known this. So. Perhaps they don't see it as a bad thing? How sustainable would it be for a population the size of China's to have similar individual consumption levels to the average American? Perhaps they see a benefit to spreading the resources of their nation amongst 200, 500, 800, whatever million people instead? It will give each person a better quality of life? It will allow the quality of life amongst Chinese people to continue improving, which will support national stability?
- dirtyid 4y ago
  It's more that past priority correctly focused on suppressing population growth at all cost. I've pointed out in other comments in this thread but roughly 40% of PRC is still in informal economy making 2000 USD per year, contributing to 5% of GDP. They are, to be blunt excess people who will be trapped in lower middle income because they couldn't be integrated into modern economy due to various factors. Estimates for PRC family planning averted ~300M births. Imagine another 120-200M poor, with agri resources already near limits. A PRC with 1.4B and 600M useless people and demographic crisis is still preferrable to PRC with 1.7B and 720-800M useless people that would need to be reigned in anyway.
GalenErso 4y ago
This is a major news event. Do not downplay it. Demographers have known for a long time that China's population was aging at an accelerated rate and the ratio of workers to retirees was shrinking, from 10:1 during the Maoist era to 4:1 or 3:1 today. China's population growth had slowed in the last two decades. But I did not think I would see this happen so soon. The CCP might see a smaller population as easier to manage and control. But with the greying of China's workforce will come significant economic pressures. It will be more difficult for China to sustain high growth with a shrinking population. Actually, scratch that. It will be impossible. Welcome to the 2% annual growth club. It will also be difficult to escape the middle income trap. China got old before it got rich. The cynic in me would say that the CCP would turn a blind eye to leting Covid rip through the country in order to purge the ranks of economically unproductive seniors.
- toomuchtodo 4y ago
  Excellent comment. Also, for note, the longer the total fertility rate is below replacement rate, the more that trajectory is “locked in” due to the fertility death spiral (shrinking pool of women of childbearing age as a function of time). There is no turning back for China, they did not reach economic escape velocity due to mismanaged demographic and economic central planning policy.
  - dirtyid 4y ago
    >fertility death spiral ... >no turning back UN annual births estimates for PRC are still 9M down to 5M births per year by 2100 @ 800M pop. Hardly a death spiral, that's still an absurd amount of people / talent generation, world leading levels regardless of which side of the 95% confidence interval one wants to draw from. Central planning reforming academic, R&D, S&T, industrial infra means instead of currently 5M STEM it will be "merely" 3M STEM per year over next 70s years = PRC will still be aggregating massive productive talent relative to peers. Likely scenario is PRC will be 2nd largest country after India, except one instead with current talent composition of roughly 3 Japans and 5 Nigerias, it will be 6 Japans, i.e. still a very large country and significantly more formidable productively than now. I don't know what "economic escape velocity" means, but PRC has built all the prerequisite blocks for advancing the economy. There's a lag effect between popping out 10s of million STEM over the past 10-15 years and converting that talent to economic output. Which indicators from various S&T indexes and PRC moving up the value chain in the last few years suggest is well underway.
toomuchtodo 4y ago
https://archive.ph/3XHyV https://archive.ph/3XHyV

17 points by cardamomo 4y ago

I am quite befuddled by the claims of the demographic crisis, did Chinese planners not forsee this since population dynamics models are relatively straightforward compared to say, epidemiological or climate models. Chinese Academies are quite good. Is this fear mongering by a spirited cadre of believers who might be most likely wrong or a very likely outcome?

amalgamated_inc 4y ago
> Chinese Academies are quite good Almost like it doesn't matter how good your academics are in a communist dictatorship :) If only we had an example of one such communist dictatorship collapsing despite all their genius planners..
verdverm 4y ago
There are several outlets predicting a 50% population decline by the end of the century, but it is generally a well known issue tied to the 1-child policy and the more general pattern of higher living standard tied to lower birth rates. The Chinese are now having fewer children and waiting longer, much like most other advanced economies. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/12/05/key-facts-about-chinas-declining-population/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/12/05/key-facts-a... The "crisis" is tied to a population age distribution skewed towards the older, so you have fewer people working and supporting a growing number of retirees.
hindsightbias 4y ago
Idk why this is news, fertility and one-child policy outcomes have been obvious for over a decade “Clearly, the situation is becoming urgent. Already the country's population is ageing fast. The first children born under the one-child policy face the prospect of caring for an ever-increasing number of pensioners.” https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-pacific-11404623 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-pacific-11404623 “Analysis in Laxenburg, Austria, predicts that the ratio of over-65s to 15-to-65-year-olds in China will increase almost threefold between 2010 and 2035. That means for each person over 65 there will be just three working-age people, compared to 10 today” - 2007 https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19626291-800-china-special-one-child-one-big-problem/ https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19626291-800-china-sp...
- haltingproblem 4y ago
  My question was why did the Chinese intelligentsia not foresee this 20 years ago (2000s) or 30 years ago (1990s) rather than over the past 5-10 years. Even now they don't seem to be attacking it with any vigor.
Andaith 4y ago
As everyone is saying, demographic models are relatively straightforward. So everyone involved in decision making should have known this. So. Perhaps they don't see it as a bad thing? How sustainable would it be for a population the size of China's to have similar individual consumption levels to the average American? Perhaps they see a benefit to spreading the resources of their nation amongst 200, 500, 800, whatever million people instead? It will give each person a better quality of life? It will allow the quality of life amongst Chinese people to continue improving, which will support national stability?
dirtyid 4y ago
It's more that past priority correctly focused on suppressing population growth at all cost. I've pointed out in other comments in this thread but roughly 40% of PRC is still in informal economy making 2000 USD per year, contributing to 5% of GDP. They are, to be blunt excess people who will be trapped in lower middle income because they couldn't be integrated into modern economy due to various factors. Estimates for PRC family planning averted ~300M births. Imagine another 120-200M poor, with agri resources already near limits. A PRC with 1.4B and 600M useless people and demographic crisis is still preferrable to PRC with 1.7B and 720-800M useless people that would need to be reigned in anyway.

GalenErso 4y ago

This is a major news event. Do not downplay it. Demographers have known for a long time that China's population was aging at an accelerated rate and the ratio of workers to retirees was shrinking, from 10:1 during the Maoist era to 4:1 or 3:1 today. China's population growth had slowed in the last two decades. But I did not think I would see this happen so soon. The CCP might see a smaller population as easier to manage and control. But with the greying of China's workforce will come significant economic pressures. It will be more difficult for China to sustain high growth with a shrinking population. Actually, scratch that. It will be impossible. Welcome to the 2% annual growth club. It will also be difficult to escape the middle income trap. China got old before it got rich. The cynic in me would say that the CCP would turn a blind eye to leting Covid rip through the country in order to purge the ranks of economically unproductive seniors.

toomuchtodo 4y ago
Excellent comment. Also, for note, the longer the total fertility rate is below replacement rate, the more that trajectory is “locked in” due to the fertility death spiral (shrinking pool of women of childbearing age as a function of time). There is no turning back for China, they did not reach economic escape velocity due to mismanaged demographic and economic central planning policy.
- dirtyid 4y ago
  >fertility death spiral ... >no turning back UN annual births estimates for PRC are still 9M down to 5M births per year by 2100 @ 800M pop. Hardly a death spiral, that's still an absurd amount of people / talent generation, world leading levels regardless of which side of the 95% confidence interval one wants to draw from. Central planning reforming academic, R&D, S&T, industrial infra means instead of currently 5M STEM it will be "merely" 3M STEM per year over next 70s years = PRC will still be aggregating massive productive talent relative to peers. Likely scenario is PRC will be 2nd largest country after India, except one instead with current talent composition of roughly 3 Japans and 5 Nigerias, it will be 6 Japans, i.e. still a very large country and significantly more formidable productively than now. I don't know what "economic escape velocity" means, but PRC has built all the prerequisite blocks for advancing the economy. There's a lag effect between popping out 10s of million STEM over the past 10-15 years and converting that talent to economic output. Which indicators from various S&T indexes and PRC moving up the value chain in the last few years suggest is well underway.

toomuchtodo 4y ago

https://archive.ph/3XHyV https://archive.ph/3XHyV