4 ms·

Government control over reproduction leads to unintended consequences? Who would've seen that coming?

by tjpnz 3y ago

satvikpendem 3y ago
Fertility rate across the world is dropping even without government intervention. Who knew having a higher standard of living means you don't need as many kids to work the farm, and indeed, that people simply don't want to give up that lifestyle in order to have kids?
- The_Colonel 3y ago
  Yes, but the fertility rate drop is just too fast in China. There will be way too many old people requiring care for too few people in the productive age. Smaller rich countries can solve this problem by importing young workers from poor countries. But on China's scale of 1.5B people that's not really feasible. (China also isn't really that rich on average, isn't attractive for immigrants and isn't culturally welcoming to immigrants)
jeswin 3y ago
It's not automatically a bad thing. China has done fantastically well economically, and in terms of health care, education etc. There are other countries which have had strict population control and have done well economically - such as Singapore, South Korea. I see nothing wrong with poorer countries keeping restrictions on population growth - so that they can increase the standard of living and make sure everyone gets education and healthcare.
- jskrablin 3y ago
  It may work in short term but then you run out of population in long term. And suddenly any gains from short term improvement is under a big question mark.
  - blackoil 3y ago
    Why does China need 1.5 billion people?
    - robjan 3y ago
      Future generations have to pay off the debt generated by the current generation. Same as everywhere. You can either grow the population or make the economy more efficient, China still has the latter lever available to pull.
      - blackoil 3y ago
        China has a gross savings rate of 45-50%. Current gen has saved for their future.
        dougmwne 3y ago
        Money is an abstract representation of the labor of others. If there’s no one to labor for you then your currency is just paper.
        lotsofpulp 3y ago
        Currency might also just be bits on a server.
        Balero 3y ago
        I agree in theory with you. But you can 'bank' labour for later on. Building infrastructure (that will last) when you have a population bulge, means that the generations after can take advantage of that infrastructure, and have to do the lower amount of work, of maintaining it. This can go for things like education, investing in businesses, and generally any capital. Of course you can also over build this capital that will never be used, but will need to be paid back (for example a local government pays to build a town that there are no people to fill it with) and the maintenance is too much, but you still have to look after the people who did the building.
- throwaway2037 3y ago
  strict population control SG/KR has this? Tell me more.
  - jeswin 3y ago
    Had.
- somenameforme 3y ago
  A declining fertility rate doesn't just change change the population, but also the relative distribution of each age group. A fertility rate of "N" means the next generation will be "N/2" times as large as the one before it. Because of this you can easily model what a society, composed of successive generations of a fixed fertility rate, would look like. To keep things simple, imagine everybody gives birth to all their kids at 20. When they actually do doesn't matter, it would always converge on the same ratios: ---- Fertility Rate of 2 (average age = 40): 100 80-year-olds, 100 60-year-olds, 100 40-year-olds, 100 20-year-olds, 100 newborns. Fertility Rate of 1 (average age = 63): 100 80-year-olds, 50 60-year-olds, 25 40-year-olds, 12 20-year-olds, 6 newborns Fertility rate of 0.5 (average age = 74): 100 80-year-olds, 25 60-year-olds, 6 40-year-olds, 1 20-year-olds, 0 newborns ---- You can also estimate the ongoing population rate of change for each fertility group by removing the elderly generation, adding a newborn generation, and contrasting the new population sizes: ---- Fertility Rate of 2: 500->500 = 0% population change per 20 years Fertility Rate of 1: 193->96 = 50% population decline per 20 years Fertility Rate of 0.5: 132->32 = 76% population decline per 20 years ---- In the developed world most fertility rates plummeted around 1970. So, assuming nothing radically changes, we should start hitting our 'equilibrium point' about one life expectancy away, so sometime around 2050.
fmajid 3y ago
Except it’s been loosened after decades, and suddenly the economy tanks? The more likely explanation is Xi’s authoritarianism and crackdown on the private sector. Anyone with a brain in China is trying to get their money and themselves out of the country.
- tjpnz 3y ago
  One thing didn't cause the other but it needs to be considered when looking longterm. Its effect will have an impact on the economy for many decades.
  - fmajid 3y ago
    Of course, demography is destiny, but the point is the sudden worsening of China's economic outlook did not coincide with tightening of the one-child policy, quite the opposite. The challenge for China is that it got old before it got rich like the European nations or Japan, and this transition will be much harder to navigate.
    - The_Colonel 3y ago
      The bigger challenge is that the demigraphic shift is much more dramatic than either Europe or Japan. The fertility rate was 6 in 1970, it dropped to a half within a decade and then kept dropping rapidly.
- RugnirViking 3y ago
  It has been loosened because of the inevitable damage it is causing. Look at china's demographic pyramid. Their widest demography is 45-60. Their birthrates are very low. As those people age and there are fewer workers entering the workforce it will lead to social problems (as it did in japan and currently is in the west) That's not to say there isnt a big crackdown on just about everything right now. There is. Bankers forced to read xi jinping thought and write essays on it monthly etc.
somenameforme 3y ago
This is a crisis happening everywhere in the developed world. A stable practical fertility rate is 2.1. South Korea has the lowest fertility rate in the world, below 0.8, and there was no government meddling there. The US fertility rate is also plummeting and now down to below 1.7 and heavily biased by income. The birth rate for households earning < $10,000 is about 50% higher than those earning > $200,000 [1] with a near perfect linear relationship for incomes in between. And obviously there are way more poor households than 'rich.' It's so odd to me that of the many issues people freak out about, this one ranks relatively low. We're looking at a non-speculative and entirely real demographic collapse of the entire developed world, in quite rapid order. For those who may not appreciate the impact, a total fertility rate of "N" means you will trend towards a system where the population of one older generation will be "2/N" times larger than the next younger generation. So if you have a fertility rate of 2, each generation will be exactly the same. If you have a fertility rate of 1 then each older generation will be exactly twice as large as the next younger generation. So, for a simple model, imagine we all gave birth at 20. You'd trend towards a population distribution of 16 80-year-olds, 8 60-year-olds, 4 40-year-olds, 2 20-year-olds, 1 newborn. Systems of social security, healthcare, and the general economy will just collapse under that sort of pressure. [1] - https://www.statista.com/statistics/241530/birth-rate-by-family-income-in-the-us/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/241530/birth-rate-by-fam...
- meowtimemania 3y ago
  Usa does have immigration to supplement the birth rate.
  - perlgeek 3y ago
    It does, but on a global scale this only works as long as there are enough countries with high birth rates. And birth rates are going down basically everywhere.
    - ssijak 3y ago
      They are up in "undeveloped" countries.
blackoil 3y ago
China still has ~20% people in agriculture with automation that can be bought down to 5%. That should free enough resources.
Tade0 3y ago
Truth be told they didn't have much of a choice, as it prevented around 400mln births in a country that has been a net food importer for over 20 years: https://www.cfr.org/article/china-increasingly-relies-imported-food-thats-problem https://www.cfr.org/article/china-increasingly-relies-import...

Government control over reproduction leads to unintended consequences? Who would've seen that coming?

by tjpnz 3y ago

Government control over reproduction leads to unintended consequences? Who would've seen that coming?

Fertility rate across the world is dropping even without government intervention. Who knew having a higher standard of living means you don't need as many kids to work the farm, and indeed, that people simply don't want to give up that lifestyle in order to have kids?

The_Colonel 3y ago
Yes, but the fertility rate drop is just too fast in China. There will be way too many old people requiring care for too few people in the productive age. Smaller rich countries can solve this problem by importing young workers from poor countries. But on China's scale of 1.5B people that's not really feasible. (China also isn't really that rich on average, isn't attractive for immigrants and isn't culturally welcoming to immigrants)

jeswin 3y ago

It's not automatically a bad thing. China has done fantastically well economically, and in terms of health care, education etc. There are other countries which have had strict population control and have done well economically - such as Singapore, South Korea. I see nothing wrong with poorer countries keeping restrictions on population growth - so that they can increase the standard of living and make sure everyone gets education and healthcare.

jskrablin 3y ago
It may work in short term but then you run out of population in long term. And suddenly any gains from short term improvement is under a big question mark.
- blackoil 3y ago
  Why does China need 1.5 billion people?
  - robjan 3y ago
    Future generations have to pay off the debt generated by the current generation. Same as everywhere. You can either grow the population or make the economy more efficient, China still has the latter lever available to pull.
    - blackoil 3y ago
      China has a gross savings rate of 45-50%. Current gen has saved for their future.
      - dougmwne 3y ago
        Money is an abstract representation of the labor of others. If there’s no one to labor for you then your currency is just paper.
        lotsofpulp 3y ago
        Currency might also just be bits on a server.
        Balero 3y ago
        I agree in theory with you. But you can 'bank' labour for later on. Building infrastructure (that will last) when you have a population bulge, means that the generations after can take advantage of that infrastructure, and have to do the lower amount of work, of maintaining it. This can go for things like education, investing in businesses, and generally any capital. Of course you can also over build this capital that will never be used, but will need to be paid back (for example a local government pays to build a town that there are no people to fill it with) and the maintenance is too much, but you still have to look after the people who did the building.
throwaway2037 3y ago
strict population control SG/KR has this? Tell me more.
- jeswin 3y ago
  Had.
somenameforme 3y ago
A declining fertility rate doesn't just change change the population, but also the relative distribution of each age group. A fertility rate of "N" means the next generation will be "N/2" times as large as the one before it. Because of this you can easily model what a society, composed of successive generations of a fixed fertility rate, would look like. To keep things simple, imagine everybody gives birth to all their kids at 20. When they actually do doesn't matter, it would always converge on the same ratios: ---- Fertility Rate of 2 (average age = 40): 100 80-year-olds, 100 60-year-olds, 100 40-year-olds, 100 20-year-olds, 100 newborns. Fertility Rate of 1 (average age = 63): 100 80-year-olds, 50 60-year-olds, 25 40-year-olds, 12 20-year-olds, 6 newborns Fertility rate of 0.5 (average age = 74): 100 80-year-olds, 25 60-year-olds, 6 40-year-olds, 1 20-year-olds, 0 newborns ---- You can also estimate the ongoing population rate of change for each fertility group by removing the elderly generation, adding a newborn generation, and contrasting the new population sizes: ---- Fertility Rate of 2: 500->500 = 0% population change per 20 years Fertility Rate of 1: 193->96 = 50% population decline per 20 years Fertility Rate of 0.5: 132->32 = 76% population decline per 20 years ---- In the developed world most fertility rates plummeted around 1970. So, assuming nothing radically changes, we should start hitting our 'equilibrium point' about one life expectancy away, so sometime around 2050.

fmajid 3y ago

Except it’s been loosened after decades, and suddenly the economy tanks? The more likely explanation is Xi’s authoritarianism and crackdown on the private sector. Anyone with a brain in China is trying to get their money and themselves out of the country.

tjpnz 3y ago
One thing didn't cause the other but it needs to be considered when looking longterm. Its effect will have an impact on the economy for many decades.
- fmajid 3y ago
  Of course, demography is destiny, but the point is the sudden worsening of China's economic outlook did not coincide with tightening of the one-child policy, quite the opposite. The challenge for China is that it got old before it got rich like the European nations or Japan, and this transition will be much harder to navigate.
  - The_Colonel 3y ago
    The bigger challenge is that the demigraphic shift is much more dramatic than either Europe or Japan. The fertility rate was 6 in 1970, it dropped to a half within a decade and then kept dropping rapidly.
RugnirViking 3y ago
It has been loosened because of the inevitable damage it is causing. Look at china's demographic pyramid. Their widest demography is 45-60. Their birthrates are very low. As those people age and there are fewer workers entering the workforce it will lead to social problems (as it did in japan and currently is in the west) That's not to say there isnt a big crackdown on just about everything right now. There is. Bankers forced to read xi jinping thought and write essays on it monthly etc.

somenameforme 3y ago

This is a crisis happening everywhere in the developed world. A stable practical fertility rate is 2.1. South Korea has the lowest fertility rate in the world, below 0.8, and there was no government meddling there. The US fertility rate is also plummeting and now down to below 1.7 and heavily biased by income. The birth rate for households earning < $10,000 is about 50% higher than those earning > $200,000 [1] with a near perfect linear relationship for incomes in between. And obviously there are way more poor households than 'rich.' It's so odd to me that of the many issues people freak out about, this one ranks relatively low. We're looking at a non-speculative and entirely real demographic collapse of the entire developed world, in quite rapid order. For those who may not appreciate the impact, a total fertility rate of "N" means you will trend towards a system where the population of one older generation will be "2/N" times larger than the next younger generation. So if you have a fertility rate of 2, each generation will be exactly the same. If you have a fertility rate of 1 then each older generation will be exactly twice as large as the next younger generation. So, for a simple model, imagine we all gave birth at 20. You'd trend towards a population distribution of 16 80-year-olds, 8 60-year-olds, 4 40-year-olds, 2 20-year-olds, 1 newborn. Systems of social security, healthcare, and the general economy will just collapse under that sort of pressure. [1] - https://www.statista.com/statistics/241530/birth-rate-by-family-income-in-the-us/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/241530/birth-rate-by-fam...

meowtimemania 3y ago
Usa does have immigration to supplement the birth rate.
- perlgeek 3y ago
  It does, but on a global scale this only works as long as there are enough countries with high birth rates. And birth rates are going down basically everywhere.
  - ssijak 3y ago
    They are up in "undeveloped" countries.

blackoil 3y ago

China still has ~20% people in agriculture with automation that can be bought down to 5%. That should free enough resources.

Tade0 3y ago

Truth be told they didn't have much of a choice, as it prevented around 400mln births in a country that has been a net food importer for over 20 years: https://www.cfr.org/article/china-increasingly-relies-imported-food-thats-problem https://www.cfr.org/article/china-increasingly-relies-import...