China’s baby problem
I’ve watched many videos on the reluctance of the young people of China to have children. The problem affects other countries in Asia and the West as a whole as well, but in Europe and the US it’s nothing like as bad as in China – although who knows, we may be headed China’s way.
I’m not sure everything in these China videos is correct in terms of causes or details, but they paint a very grim and similar picture, and they all agree on a couple of things: that the younger generations in China work extremely hard at mostly unrewarding jobs and are exhausted, that they reject family life because they see it as a money and time drain, and that they are narcissistic and very materialistic.
These videos indicate to me that a significant part of the problem is that the Chicoms purposely weakened the family without replacing it with anything else except consumerism, an empty substitute. It sounds as though depression is very widespread there, whether clinically diagnosed or not. Their forced one-child policy meant that many in the younger generations have been only children, with all the indulgence, pressure, and loneliness that sometimes entails. Bigger families would be somewhat foreign to them, and I bet that many have never even been around babies all that much, or learned what the rewards of parenthood or siblinghood can be.
I think refusal to have children may also be a way to rebel in a society that doesn’t offer all that many avenues for rebellion.
Take a look:
I hadn’t seen the following video when I first wrote this post, but it has a great deal of information on how the one-child policy may have influenced the current worrisome phenomenon. That portion begins at minute 10:18, but I think the entire thing is interesting:
That’s a shame, a damn shame.
Insect Overlords are highly overrated. What can’t they F up?
Population Bomb is real, but not the way it was thought to be. Low birth rate will cause a lot of changes. AI, Robotics, will take up a lot of the slack that a lower birth rate will cause.
Latest trend in China:
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China’s Youth are quitting the rat race to ‘Let It Rot’
https://www.wsj.com/story/chinas-youth-are-quitting-the-rat-race-to-let-it-rot-6ba97f88
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Let It Be to Let It Rot.
that is the question, what holds China together, after Maoism after consumerism has not filled that gap, Xi’s shake and bake philosophy, tries to fill the gap, but warlordism in a nuclear state, is not an encouraging thought,
Korea’s in the same boat. Their marriage rate is a bit higher than China’s, but their fertility rate is even lower. A year or so ago I saw a Korean video of 2 young 20-somethings meeting a toddler for the 1st time. Both said that their parents were only children so they had no aunt, uncles, nor cousins, and they didn’t really see many kids “while out and about” so this was their 1st time ever really interacting with a child. It was quite sad, I thought.
I’ve also seen a few articles where investors have said they’re already pulling out of Korea due to the coming economic crash due to population crash being so obvious to see.
From what I can tell, China and Japan are both in the same boat as that too Perhaps at different rates, but it’s coming for all of them.
I watched the video about how China’s past one-child policy has affected the current birth rate, so I’d like to pass on something I’ve heard from Chinese friends.
My friends tell me that many of the children from one-child families are now reluctant to get married and have children, because their aging parents already depend on them, and they have no brothers or sisters to help. Parental care is expensive and time-consuming, so they’re afraid to take on the added burden of childcare. Consquently, many families are coming to an end.
I don’t know how widespread this is, but it might be a counterpoint to the selfishness described in the video.
Cornflour, conversely, do they have any thoughts about who will be available to take care of them in their respective old age when they forego having children?
R2L on April 20, 2024 at 10:59 pm said:
Cornflour, conversely, do they have any thoughts about who will be available to take care of them in their respective old age when they forego having children?
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R2L:
For most of my friends, your question would be a little too forward, but there is one person I know pretty well, so I asked her about it when we were talking about the economy. I argued that it’s hard for an economy to grow, if the population is shrinking. When I followed that up with the question you’ve raised, she just shrugged her shoulders and shook her head. I’m not sure what that means.
Anyway, anecdote is supposedly the singular of data, but maybe you were trying to make a point, and my little story is just a time waster? If so, then please accept my apologies
Cornflour:
One of the several videos I watched on the subject mentioned the care of elderly parents as a factor, too. So I think it’s a very real issue as well.
}}} Their forced one-child policy meant that many in the younger generations have been only children, with all the indulgence, pressure, and loneliness that sometimes entails.
It also lead to a male-dominant generation, as parents selected for males, like total idiots. The smart parents had girls, as they are now the ones with real power — The less desirable women — either through looks, intellect, charm, or family wealth — have far more of a selection of men rather than the other way around.
Just more evidence – as if we needed it – that the left is a death cult.
The one silver lining is that an interest in commodious living in the populace at large will stand in the way of Xi trying to conquer the world.
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Japan, Korea, Singapore, Taiwan et al are facing similar problems. Since those are benign countries, I’m hoping they can turn matters around toute-de-suite. Better for China if their political class is cleansed of Xi-types and they then manage to turn matters around.
Maybe a bunch of television series of cheerful family themes as we had in the Fifties. When the State is paying, you don’t have to sell eyeballs to sponsors.
Some problems have no solutions — apart from the changes that come organically, with the passage of time.
Americans in particular have a hard time with this concept. I know I do. It is a laudable trait, I think. But not always efficacious.
Curiously, Marxists and other utopian-minded types have the same problem.
Mamas, don’t let your babies grow up to be ChiComs
It’s fascinating how young people can be constantly connected and yet isolated, how they can be so unbookish, yet afflicted with the social ajustment problems that the bookish young have had through the generations.
I don’t know if these are the “Roaring Twenties” for Chinas’s economy, but the last two generations in China have been going through changes that took us a century to go through. So imagine your flapper grandmother coming of age not in the world of the 1920s, but in the world of the 2020s with all the technological and social developments of the 21st century world. She wants greater freedom and independence, but that means something different and has different consequences than it did a century ago.
Abraxas:
Yes, I think part of the problem is that the Chinese have gotten whiplash or maybe the bends, on a societal level.
My thumbnail understanding of Chinese history, since the Han Dynasty, is that it has always been a boom/bust cycle.
I admire the Chinese in many ways, but I am so grateful to be an American.
I was once on a large plane from HK to SF in the latter part of the 1990s. The plane was full of American parents & their new Chinese daughters. The sex distribution ended up being skewed against boys finding a mate. But much more recently I had a prospective co-author from the country side who had a large family so this 1 child /family didn’t hold uniformly.
It might be a reluctance to engage with the world at large. In my apartment building, about one-third of the residents are Chinese nationals on student or work visas who basically spend all day every day in their apartments and who only venture out (wearing pajamas, but masked and goggled of course) a few times each day to pick up their food (which can be as little as a cup of soda delivered from a nearby Wendy’s) or amazon deliveries at the front desk.
I’ve long been talking about the coming Population Neutron Bomb — fewer kids, & people, but the stuff remains.
I’m fully expecting far more robot care for the elderly, starting in Japan. Certainly sub-optimal, individually, but likely better for society.
It might be easier to increase fertility by making those married women who have already had kids better, or far better, off, economically — especially in areas with low marriage rates.
Hungary uses tax incentives, lowering the burden for each child until the fourth — gaining full tax exemption. PM Victor Orban says that the TFR is still not at replacement rates, 2.1 children, but it is close at 1.9.
He rightly complains that the problem is with the youngest cohort. Like almost everywhere else that’s in the OECD.