China in shock: Why no baby boom?

[Bussard Ramjet]

China in shock: Why no baby boom?




kjj
Already suffering its slowest growth in 25 years, China's economy has been dealt another blow after the latest population data suggested the problem could worsen.

Last year, the number of births fell, its working-age population suffered a record decline, and its migrant population shrank for the first time in 30 years, according to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Tuesday.

Experts are warning that these trends could further put the brakes on China's economy, with labour being a key component of growth.

One of the most surprising figures was the drop in the number of births, which confounded predictions that a relaxed family planning policy would boost its ageing population and shrinking workforce.

"A slowing economy could have reduced a parent's desire to have children, given the cost involved," Nankai University population expert Yuan Xin told The Straits Times.

• POPULATION AND WORKFORCE BLUES
• China's population: 1.37 billion
  
  
• Births (2013): 16.4 million
  Births (2014): 16.87 million
  
  
• Estimated births (2015): 18 million
  Actual births (2015): 16.55 million
  
  
• Population growth (2014): 7.1 million
  Population growth (2015): 6.8 million
  
  
• Working-age population (2011): 941 million (69.8 per cent of population)
  Working-age population (2015): 911 million (66.3 per cent of population)
  

Some 16.55 million babies were born last year, down from 16.87 million in 2014. This comes as China's working-age population, or those between 16 and 60 years old, saw a record decline amid gloomy forecasts of its economy.

The NBS said the working-age population fell by 4.87 million last year, sharper than the 3.71 million decline recorded in 2014.

The workforce of China, which has 1.37 billion people, now stands at 911 million.

Since it first began shrinking in 2012, the working-age population has fallen by some 13 million, or more than double Singapore's population.

China's migrant population also dropped by 5.68 million to 247 million, meaning that fewer were going to the cities to look for work.

Economist Li Xunlei told the official Xinhua news agency that the working-age population decline will hit consumption, given that this group of people formed the bulk of consumers.

The latest figures have raised questions about the effectiveness of government policies. In particular, the authorities had believed that allowing people to have more children would reverse the country's slowing birth rates.

China last year abolished its controversial one-child policy, which had been in place for more than three decades.

The two-child policy, which kicked in nationwide on Jan 1, is expected to add three million babies a year over the next five years, family planning officials had said.

But if the latest figures are anything to go by, that estimate appears overly optimistic.

Experts had predicted that one million more babies would be born last year, compared to 2014, due to a partial relaxation of the one-child policy in 2013 that allowed couples to have a second child if either parent was an only child. But instead of hitting the predicted 18 million births, the number of newborns dropped by 320,000 last year.

Prof Yuan believes that demographers may have been caught out by the low birth rate among those who applied to have a second child.

He pointed out that while 1.9 million families applied for the 2013 scheme, less than one-third actually conceived a second child.

"The younger mothers might have applied for it and - since time is on their side - just decided to wait," he said.

Chinese men also outnumbered women by 33.6 million last year, according to NBS figures.

With 113.5 boys to every 100 girls born, the authorities are concerned about "leftover men" and the difficulties they face in finding a wife.

An online commentary published by respected Caixin financial news magazine yesterday urged the authorities to do away with family planning completely, arguing that the current population growth estimates appear "too optimistic".

"Faced with the severe crisis of low birth rates, we need to immediately cancel restrictions, to quickly encourage childbirth... We believe this is China's biggest challenge in the future," it wrote.

China in shock: Why no baby boom?, East Asia News & Top Stories - The Straits Times

 

[Brahmaputra Mail]

There can be many plausible reasons like:

1. After years of practising one child per family plan people have become used to it.
2. People don't want to conceive anymore due to surge in the expense related to upbringing of second child.
3. Young people are settling in other countries and therefore starting their family in other countries.
4. Fertility has dropped due to increased stress related to work and competition everywhere.
5. Increase in awareness of contraceptives.


Let's not forget even India will go through this phase too. We have large number of young people. This Large number of young people will get old some day.

 

[cirr]

@Bussard Ramjet: the National University of Defense Techonology is the second Chinese institution that is developing an exascale HPC:

中国攻关新一代超级计算机 天河二号升级全国产-中新网

Source PLA Daily.

Good reading

 

[Bussard Ramjet]

@Bussard Ramjet: the National University of Defense Techonology is the second Chinese institution that is developing an exascale HPC:

中国攻关新一代超级计算机 天河二号升级全国产-中新网

Source PLA Daily.

Good reading

Man, keep posting such stuff. I actually follow the industrial and technological development of China, and these days no body posts anything in PDF. Keep posting stuff related to industrial and technological developments going on in China. I follow the English press, but there are few things there.

So keep me posted.

Also, do a favor to yourself and fire the whole of National Family Planning Body. They will take China down with themselves. All their predictions and forecasts have been wrong. They predicted that births will increase in 2015, but it declined.

 

[S10]

I always believed the One Child policy had been outdated for more than 15 years. It might have had its use back in the 1970's, but a more developed economy naturally leads to lower birth rate. The government maintained the policy for way too long than needed, and now they're in a panic.

 

[Sky lord]

I really can't see why thus should be a problem. How many more people is this planet supposed to feed?

 

[Nan Yang]

Because every one waiting for monkey year.

Parents in China eager to have children born in the Year of the Monkey | Daily Mail Online

 

[S10]

I really can't see why thus should be a problem. How many more people is this planet supposed to feed?

China is capable of feeding its people. The problem now is not too little food, but not enough new borns to sustain the working population. That's the general problem facing industrialized countries, too few babies. Even in India, birthrate is slowing down rapidly after living standards became higher.

 

[Bussard Ramjet]

Because every one waiting for monkey year.

Parents in China eager to have children born in the Year of the Monkey | Daily Mail Online

And the People's Daily of all places called bull shit on this reasoning.

Of course the monkey year will cause more births, but not enough to reverse the general trend of ageing population, declining workforce, and soon enough, declining population as well.

 

[Sky lord]

China is capable of feeding its people. The problem now is not too little food, but not enough new borns to sustain the working population. That's the general problem facing industrialized countries, too few babies. Even in India, birthrate is slowing down rapidly after living standards became higher.

It would be better if people had fewer babies everywhere including China and India and Africa and the Middle East and the Americas and Europe.

There is now more mass of plastic waste in the ocean than biomass of fish. Human waste and human mining and human digging has reached every inch of this planet. Other species are being killed off on a daily basis. Is it really such a bad thing for all of us to have fewer babies and scr3w economic growth for a while!

 

[Dungeness]

Nothing to worry about. If the size of working population is a problem, increasing retirement age from current 50-60 to 65-67 will add 20% work force. Besides, China is moving away from labor intensive industries, sheer number of labor is not as important in the future. Also don't forget, Chinese women's work participation is very high, so China have more GDP contributing population than India for the foreseeable future.

 

[William Hung]

China is capable of feeding its people. The problem now is not too little food, but not enough new borns to sustain the working population. That's the general problem facing industrialized countries, too few babies. Even in India, birthrate is slowing down rapidly after living standards became higher.

Actually, I don’t think a shrinking population would be the biggest problem for China. The biggest problem is going be the ageing population where you have a bad disproportion between the old population and the young working population. With such low birthrates for the last few decades, China will be heading to a point where the young working population will disproportionately be out numbered by the old people.

This will be a burden for the country and its young working people, both financially and psychologically.

Even if China manages to pull a miracle and get the fertility rate on the right track in the next few years, the Chinese generation born in the 80s, 90s and 2000s will still have to face this situation in their working life:

I can’t believe it took that long for the CCP to change the one child policy. Weren’t they aware of this simple problem?

 

[Nan Yang]

Actually, I don’t think a shrinking population would be the biggest problem for China. The biggest problem is going be the ageing population where you have a bad disproportion between the old population and the young working population. With such low birthrates for the last few decades, China will be heading to a point where the young working population will disproportionately be out numbered by the old people.

This will be a burden for the country and its young working people, both financially and psychologically.

Even if China manages to pull a miracle and get the fertility rate on the right track in the next few years, the Chinese generation born in the 80s, 90s and 2000s will still have to face this situation in their working life:

I can’t believe it took that long for the CCP to change the one child policy. Weren’t they aware of this simple problem?

Start investing in nursing homes. It will be a multi billion yuan industry soon.

 

[JSCh]

Superstition, two-child policy set to drive up birth rate in 2016
By Ding Xuezhen Source:Global Times Published: 2016-2-15 20:28:02

A mother holds her baby in the Shanghai First Maternity and Infant Hospital on February 8. The baby was the first "monkey baby" born at the hospital. Photo: CFP

Regardless of the government's persistent anti-superstition endeavors, the fact seems to be that superstitious beliefs are here to stay.

A white-collar worker surnamed Zhang in Beijing, who is now preparing for her pregnancy, chose not to have a baby in 2015, the Year of the Sheep, as "in Chinese folklore, babies born in the Year of the Sheep are more likely to lead a rough life."

An official of the National Health and Family Planning Commission (NHFPC) quoted statistics released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) in early January as saying that the number of births nationwide decreased by about 320,000 to 16.55 million in 2015 compared to the previous year.

China's newborn population in 2014 was 16.87 million, an increase of 470,000 compared with 2013, the People's Daily reported in February 2015.

The country's newborn population was previously predicted to rise to 18 million in 2015 after more couples were permitted to have a second child with the gradual lifting of the one-child policy that started in November 2013, according to a 2015 People's Daily report.

Zodiac sign preferences and the decrease in the number of women of childbearing age are the two main reasons for the drop in China's newborn population in 2015, the top family planning authority explained.

Cultural factors
Superstitions related to the zodiac extend beyond childhood and into adulthood.

Zhang used her cousin as an example, saying that "he was once cold-shouldered by his girlfriend's parents because he was born in 1991 - the Year of the Sheep. They worried that he might bring bad fortune to the family."

According to NBS statistics the number of pregnant women started to dramatically rise in July 2015, as these women would give birth in the Year of the Monkey instead of the Year of the Sheep, the NHFPC official explained, noting that the country will see growth in the newborn population in 2016.

Experts echoed the view of the authorities, admitting that cultural factors partially accounted for the decline in the number of babies born in 2015.

"The number of births dropped sharply from March 2015, the beginning of the Year of the Sheep, and remained at a low level throughout the lunar year," Zhai Zhenwu, chairman of the standing council of the China Population Association, an academic community of population studies under NHFPC, told the Global Times.

"Cultural factors are playing an increasingly important role in recent years," Zhai said, noting that the phenomenon was more prominent in the north than in the south.

Such marked changes in demographics due to people's "unscientific cultural views" may lead to a waste of social resources, including education, health care and transportation, said Ma Li, an expert on population.

"If the population sees a big increase in a certain period of time, more public services have to be built, which will become idle in the future when population growth slows down," Ma said.

Monkey baby boom
A new round of baby boom is arriving in the Year of the Monkey as hospitals are making preparations and obstetricians seeing more mothers-to-be.

In January, Beijing Obstetrics and Gynecology Hospital started enlarging its emergency ward by 30 percent, providing more beds in the newborn intensive care unit and hiring more nurses to handle the expected baby boom, the Beijing Morning Post reported. "The increase in the number of visits was obvious," Wang Xin, a chief obstetrician of the Beijing Obstetrics and Gynecology Hospital, confirmed with the Global Times.

"We began to see an increasing number of patients in the second half of 2015. In January, the number of patients almost doubled in January 2016," Wang continued. "Each working day, I see almost a total of 60 or 70 outpatients each morning."

"In the following five years, the number of births each year is expected to increase by 4 or 5 million to nearly 20 or 21 million," Ma said.

The expert said population growth will regain momentum in 2016 due to the easing of family planning policies in the Year of the Sheep as well as the currently adopted two-child policy, which allows all couples to have two children.

 

[gambit]

There can be many plausible reasons like:

1. After years of practising one child per family plan people have become used to it.
2. People don't want to conceive anymore due to surge in the expense related to upbringing of second child.
3. Young people are settling in other countries and therefore starting their family in other countries.
4. Fertility has dropped due to increased stress related to work and competition everywhere.
5. Increase in awareness of contraceptives.


Let's not forget even India will go through this phase too. We have large number of young people. This Large number of young people will get old some day.

Here is what most -- probably including the Chinese members in this forum -- do not know: That the One-Child policy was created by rocket scientists.

Literally -- rocket scientists. Song Jian was the leader of this group.

As if that was not bad enough, they did it without any credible data to back up their math. During the Cultural Revolution, the sciences -- hard and soft -- were effectively destroyed. Among those sciences were Demographics.

The three first important data in demographic study are: birth rate, age, and population movement.

Demographic scientists outside China admitted their forecasts are most accurate to only a 20-30 yrs time frame into the future. Any greater and the margin of error become increasingly unacceptable.

Against a Trend, U.S. Population Will Bloom, U.N. Says - NYTimes.com

...Nicholas Eberstadt, a demographer and political scientist, said population projections had to be viewed skeptically.

"There is no scientific basis to long-range population prediction," he said in an interview, "because no one has figured out how to estimate how many babies currently unborn babies are going to have. So when you look half a century out, you're into science fiction." All demographers can ever do, he said, is provide an educated glimpse of what the world may look like in the future.

Song Jian and his fellow rocket scientists were projecting China's population growth -- based upon no demographic data -- as far as 100 yrs into the future.

The points you listed are considered reasonable on why China is unlikely to experience a 'baby boom'. The problem here is that while the Chinese government can kill babies at will, it cannot force its citizens to produce babies.