• @OldWoodFrame@lemm.ee
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    5311 months ago

    Aging population of disproportionately unmarried males and very low immigration.

    China’s gonna get weird in the next decade or two.

    • Anomandaris
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      2411 months ago

      And the rest of the developed world is going to follow close behind as long as the wealth inequality stays as ridiculously broken as it is.

      • @NanoooK@sh.itjust.works
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        2211 months ago

        One of the major difference with the rest of the developed world is the more or less accepted immigration. See Germany for example.

          • FaceDeer
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            511 months ago

            Robots and AIs can start handling more and more of the work, hopefully enough to support a population with a larger proportion of retired/unemployed humans.

            • theodewere
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              111 months ago

              Robots and AIs can start handling more

              becoming less involved in how our world functions only serves to empower The Matrix, and make us more like slaves

              • FaceDeer
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                311 months ago

                Are retirees really like slaves?

                The AIs and robots will be doing our bidding, not the other way around.

                • theodewere
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                  111 months ago

                  i like definitive statements like that about the future… they’re comforting…

      • sadreality
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        011 months ago

        You sound like a domestic terrorist sir… how about you work harder!

    • @clutch@lemmy.ml
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      311 months ago

      On the other hand that low fertility may help reduce the youth unemployment rate in 20 years from now. The same rate that the Chinese government decided to give up computing…

      /s obviously but it is really bad for them

  • Buelldozer
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    11 months ago

    China’s demographics are irrecoverably screwed, there is quite literally no way back. Their population collapse began some years ago and the only thing it can do from here is gather speed. Literally every woman in the country between the ages of 16 and 45 could have three children, a totally laughable hypothetical, and it still wouldn’t be enough to stop it.

    That’s official statistics too, there’s some work out there by Chinese Academics shows that it may actually be worse.

      • Buelldozer
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        011 months ago

        I’m not sure what your comment means exactly but I don’t see any way out of the demographic hole that they’re in. Fixing it would require continued forced impregnation of every eligible citizen for at least the next decade and opening up their immigration to levels well beyond anything they’ve ever allowed. I strongly doubt that Chinese citizens would tolerate the forced impregnation tactic and who the hell would immigrate knowing that it was a requirement?

    • alternative_factor
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      211 months ago

      Couldn’t they just allow immigration? I get that most people don’t want to move to China anymore but it would probably help. I also know they won’t but would immigration work in a vacuum?

      • @qtj@feddit.de
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        311 months ago

        I think a big problem would be population size. China has about the same population as all of Africa. So the question would be where immigrants should come from. I imagine to be helpful china would probably have to become a popular destination for migrants from all of Africa and Asia at a very large scale.

  • AutoTL;DRB
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    1511 months ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:


    HONG KONG, Aug 15 (Reuters) - China’s fertility rate is estimated to have dropped to a record low of 1.09 in 2022, the National Business Daily said on Tuesday, a figure likely to rattle authorities as they try to boost the country’s declining number of new births.

    China’s fertility rate is already one of the world’s lowest alongside South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore.

    Concerned about China’s first population drop in six decades and its rapid ageing population, Beijing is urgently trying an array of measures to lift the birth rate including financial incentives and improved childcare facilities.

    China has said it will focus on education, science and technology to improve population quality and strive to maintain a “moderate fertility” level to support economic growth in future.

    Gender discrimination and traditional stereotypes of women caring for their children are still widespread throughout the country.

    Authorities have in recent months increased rhetoric on sharing the duty of child rearing but paternity leave is still limited in most provinces.


    I’m a bot and I’m open source!

  • elouboub
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    911 months ago

    A dictatorship can’t force fertility… or can it?

      • alternative_factor
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        211 months ago

        Yup, one of the most fascinating videos I’ve ever seen was on the subject- fertility rates did go up, but all the kids ended up getting raised by orphanages that abused the shit out of them.

    • Bloops
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      111 months ago

      No one’s been able to reverse it so far, not even the countries that have increased child support. Personally, I think if we go all-in on restructuring our economy to support child-rearing then it will reverse, but I think it’s too radical and expensive for countries to consider.

  • @Sentinian@lemmy.one
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    511 months ago

    So on the topic, can someone explain why birth rates are so important if it isn’t lower then the death rate? I see this issue so much and I really can’t find a good issue other then economic reasons

    • @vind@lemmy.world
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      1611 months ago

      If the birth rate is too low, the population will progressively become older and older with fewer young people there to support them

    • Uranium3006
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      811 months ago

      the country will be full of old people and no one to take care of them

    • @Sl00k@programming.dev
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      611 months ago

      Really your only answers are going to be based in economics.

      A society can absolutely thrive with a 1:1 ratio, but not built around a capitalistic mindset. Quite frankly China’s probably the best person to have this problem and they ignore the whims of capitalism for their countries residents quite often.

      Possible non-economic considerations could be not having enough people to build a military and lack of cultural exportation. Both of which China doesn’t really have any problems with.

  • theodewere
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    211 months ago

    how wealthy is Xi Jinping, does anyone know? i’ll bet that guy is basically the richest man on Earth…

  • YⓄ乙
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    -111 months ago

    Why is this happening across the world ? I personally know friends who are trying to have a baby but can’t

    • Bloops
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      111 months ago

      That’s called infertility, and it’s a separate issue. Fertility rate refers to children per woman, and this is decreasing globally to unsustainable levels. There is a phenomenon known as the “demographic transition” that refers to the demographic shift of pre-industrial high births and high mortality, to high births and low mortality due to modern science, to finally low births and low mortality. The only successful policy to reverse baked-in population decline so far has been to accept large numbers of immigrants. Obviously this can’t be universally applied because those immigrants have to come from somewhere.

    • Zuberi 👀
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      711 months ago

      Confused what point you’re even trying to make here. Lemmy is diverse and not just one instance.

  • lumpen2
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    -1011 months ago

    Westerners love to fantasize about how “China is Collapsing” while their economies are in complete disarray. I’m no defender of their State Capitalist Police State, but China’s definitely doing better than the US is lmao and they certainly are in a better

    Like all this shit about “demographic collapse” is complete bullshit. Isn’t it a good thing that the population of the world’s most populous country is decreasing? Doesn’t that mean more resources to go around? Wouldn’t people in China then enjoy a higher Standard of Living, Cheaper food and Housing? At the very least they’ll be in a better shape to handle the climate catastrophe we’re going into. Something the West is not even trying to address.

    But yeah China is collapsing, okay.

    • lumpen2
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      -711 months ago

      Yeah Right, China Survived the Great Leap Forward but a marginal decline in fertility rates will lead to absolutely chaos lol

      and don’t they run this story every 3 weeks are so?