Lots of things from my understanding. The policy, the preference for sons, more women entering the workplace and choosing not to have children, people not being able to afford multiple kids etc. etc. etc.
It's a mixture of the problem facing a lot of developed nations (declining birthrates) compounded by bad policy decisions and social/cultural forces.
Should just let them have as many kids as they want.
Doesn't Emperor Pooh Bear have like 4 or 5 kids?
Women in China have to overcome a lot of artificial obstacles. Yet, one thing is true, “the cream always rises to the top.” Those that survived the system ended up to be high achievers.
China’s official statistics show that there are more female than male students in Chinese universities and the gap is widening. In a country with more men than women, and many families still prioritize their boys’ education, and women require higher scores to get into China universities, it is interesting to see that gender ratio reverse on campus. Women now made up 70% of the medical student population in China. Don’t bother clicking on my link unless you read Mandarin.
Government data also show that women set up 55% of new internet companies in China and more than a quarter of all entrepreneurs are women. This is a much higher number than in any other country in the world. That link is from Bloomberg although it is behind paywall.
There are 88 self-made female billionaires found across the world, and 56 Chinese businesswomen among them. Marking China the best place in the world to be a female entrepreneur.
Basically, despite all the difficulties and gender discrimination, women are outperforming men in China. This adds to the problem. Successful women rarely marry down. Your typical Chinese men do not want wives that are more successful than them.
Last edited by Rasulis; 2021-06-01 at 07:12 PM.
There is a sharp decline in work force participation among women who are older than 30 compared to women below 30. That's when a lot of couples start having kids. They leave the work force to take care of the kids, can't have both a kid and a job.
Society also kind of looks down on a working mother, because what kind of mother wouldn't stay at home to take care of her kids? A bad mother.
A mother who can't afford to? I'd argue a mother who goes to work, missing precious time with their children, to ensure that they can afford to feed and care for them is a pretty good mother, personally.
But hey, I don't imagine every mother is independently wealthy or that their spouses/partners can make enough to raise a family on a single income anymore.
Women in China got around that problem by not having babies. There are other broad signs of dissatisfaction among Chinese women: The marriage rate fell last year to its lowest point in the 70-year history of the People’s Republic of China. The link is in Mandarin.
The divorce rate is climbing, too, with women initiating the majority of the cases. In Beijing, the authorities reported one divorce for every two marriages in 2017.
oh Jesus, you know you can't base your society off of making everyone have to work to make ends meet and then still hold these sort of antiquated positions. it's like those doofus' that see an ad from the 1950's selling dish soap and wistfully look back at a time when women were barefoot but a man could afford to pay for everything working his union backed job. you cant have it both ways.
Last edited by uuuhname; 2021-06-01 at 07:52 PM.
...uhh you're not going to find many parents going "yeah having kids was a bad idea, wish we had just spent all that money on ourselves. That sports car would have brought me the happiness in my waning years that family simply couldn't."
And if you do know a lot of people like that, I have no idea what terrible kinds of people you're hanging out with. Or what apparently shitty children they're raising. Though if that's the attitude they take towards parenting, maybe it explains the children.
I can't speak to Chinese society but I can tell you that having both parents working while having children is by and large the expected norm in "western" society. I'd wager that very few people up through fairly well-off middle class find themselves so gainfully employed that they can afford to have a parent that's home all day and not working a job.
Last edited by Kaleredar; 2021-06-02 at 06:59 AM.
“Do not lose time on daily trivialities. Do not dwell on petty detail. For all of these things melt away and drift apart within the obscure traffic of time. Live well and live broadly. You are alive and living now. Now is the envy of all of the dead.” ~ Emily3, World of Tomorrow
Words to live by.
These mixture of problems can be resolved by having more immigration (I know right-wing heads exploding right now) and by not suppressing other ethnic groups within your official borders.
Having more unprotected sex however won't resolve any population issues
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-53424726
If the 1.3 births per women is true than than China will have more issues than Japan in a much quicker timeframe. China probably is also dealing with allot more emigration than Japan for example which is another issue that they won't be able to resolve in a quick fashion.This, combined with a low fertility rate of just 1.4 births per woman, means that the number of people able to fill jobs in the country is in decline.
Countries need a fertility rate of about 2.1 births to maintain existing population sizes.
China is so large that immigration can't work for them. Not only is their birth rate much lower than the US they cant attract enough people to replace the millions per year retiring. China would have to import millions of immigrants a year already and that number would only climb. And given the ethno-nationalist nature of the place that is a tall order.
It is why some forecasts are predicting that by 2100 the population of China will be smaller than the USA.
Well immigration can help with soften the impact because again, more unprotected sex won't really resolve anything after decades of 1-child policy.
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Cry me a rivier with your "tensions".
Immigration as a solution to population problem is as old as humanity itself, slavery for example was part of the solution to ensure that you had enough people in the workforce to ensure a stable economy. Nomads used to wage war and absorb the other tribes (probably the women) into there own tribes for example
So, can we finally put to rest this notion that the US has to fear China now?
"When Facism comes to America, it will be wrapped in a flag and carrying a cross." - Unknown
Immigration is the engine that drives US economy from the bottom to the top.
The US agriculture and construction sectors would collapse without immigrant workers. Go into any construction sites in any states and Spanish is basically the second language. The same with meat packing and most menial labor sectors.
US rural high schools depend on teachers from the Philippines.
US health care system also depends on foreign trained doctors and nurses.
In the middle-income levels, first and second generation immigrants are responsible for over 40% of US small businesses. Employing tens of millions of US citizens. My business partner is a perfect example. He came to the US in the 1970s with a backpack. Ended up with full carry at UC Berkeley. When he passed away in 2019, he left a small engineering company that employs 20+ US citizens.
At the top end, the biggest companies in the US are founded or have CEOs who are first or second generation immigrants. Here is a short list, Apple, Microsoft, Google, SpaceX, Tesla, Doordash, Moderna, Zoom, T.Y. Lin, etc. etc. Eric Yuan, the CEO and founder of Zoom, applied nine (9) times for his US visa before it was approved.
How about technological development?
More than three out of every four patents at the top 10 patent-producing U.S. universities, or 76 percent, had at least one foreign-born inventor.
Foreign-born inventors played especially large roles in cutting-edge fields like semiconductor device manufacturing (87 percent), information technology (84 percent), pulse or digital communications (83 percent), pharmaceutical drugs or drug compounds (79 percent), and optics (77 percent).
The almost 1,500 patents awarded to these US universities boasted inventors from 88 different countries.
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Fear? No. Wary? Yes.
China is better for the US as a competitor than an ally. At least until the invasion of the mole people which will require humanity to unite and lead to the development of global government.