Earlier this week, The National Bureau of Statistics of China announced that China’s population has decreased in for the first time in 60 years. The drop in population did not come as a complete surprise. Containing population growth was the entire goal of the one-child policy that was in effect from 1980 to 2015, and women in China have given birth to fewer children than needed to sustain the population since the early 1990s. But even before the one-child policy, fertility in China was on a downward trend. Fertility fell from more than six children to just three children per woman in just 11 years from 1967 to 1978. And apart from a slight increase in the years immediately following the end of the one-child policy, fertility continued get a raise. decrease since 2017. According to various estimates, the total fertility rate in China is now just over one child per woman.
Many see China’s low birth rate and shrinking population as a threat to the country’s economic prosperity, arguing that the labor force will shrink at the same time as the costs of social security and the number of people living in the country. Dependency will explode as the population ages. Such alarming reactions are typical of the discourse on low fertility and aging populations. However, while low fertility and an aging population certainly pose some challenges, they need not herald a demise.
Not sure that fertility in China will increase significantly in the coming years. Once low fertility has become the norm in one generation, it is less likely to rise again in subsequent generations. We have done research on this topic and call it “low spawn trap.” Mathematically, fewer births in one generation means fewer potential parents in the next. Furthermore, people who grew up with fewer siblings and less contact with larger families consider smaller families “normal” and therefore tend to have smaller families. Each generation also tends to have higher material aspirations than the previous generation while also taking longer to achieve the same standard of living. In the case of China, the country’s total fertility rate has reached what we consider a “zero level of return” of 1.5 children per woman in 2019. Many men are suffering Struggling to find female partners due to the excess number of males relative to females—largely stemming from the tradition of male preference and sex-selective abortion during the one-child policy era. Therefore, China’s population decline may accelerate in the future, as many men will be childless.
The factors that contribute to low fertility in China appear to be similar to those that cause low fertility in other countries: spending more time on education and starting a business; high cost of housing and child rearing; changes in values and expectations around sex, marriage, and children; the inherent expectation that women should shoulder domestic responsibilities; and difficulties in combining work and family, especially for women. In China, many people of childbearing age face increased pressure as an only child to take care of elderly parents. As a result, young people tend to delay getting married and having children, thereby reducing fertility, and more and more people are deciding to have fewer or no children at all.
From countries with low fertility in Asia and Europe, we know that measures designed to increase birth rates – such as a one-time bonus for childbirth, childcare benefits or maternity leave Paid Allowances – rarely have more than a transient impact on birth rates as they only deal with the problem superficially. factors leading to low fertility. And so far, China seems to be going through a similar experience: Despite the implementation of the policy of having two and then having three children, a number of new initiatives and propaganda promote births. , fertility continues to decline. But even if the birth rate is unlikely to rise again, in China or elsewhere, that doesn’t necessarily mean disaster.
Concern about population Aging is often guided by the mistaken idea that older people are uniformly sick, dependent, and ineffective. In fact, the average health of people over 60 has improved dramatically over the past decades. And while the risk of declining health increases with age, especially in the second half of life, most people over 60 have high activity levels. In 2020, just 8% of people in this age group in China said they had difficulty performing activities of daily living such as dressing or cooking food—down from 12% in 2011. Improvements Improvements in education level, residential environment and access to health care are among the improvements in the main factors contributing to this decline. Furthermore, a shrinking workforce is less likely to threaten economic growth as new technologies can take on more tasks.
Low fertility presents China not only with challenges but also with opportunities. Low fertility and reduced population size can reduce overcrowding and resource use, and make it more possible to meet climate and pollution reduction goals. Low fertility makes poverty alleviation easier because more resources can be invested per child born. Increased competition for labor is likely to drive improvements in wages and working conditions. Low fertility also gives women the freedom to invest their time, energy, and talents in things other than childbearing, and thus helps elevate women’s status in society. An older population may also contribute to a reduction in violence and crime.
