Posted on 11/06/2022 8:53:59 PM PST by SeekAndFind
President Xi Jinping recently vowed to launch comprehensive initiatives to address China’s rapidly declining birth rate.
Behind the bombastic rhetoric, however, there lies a truly sobering fact: new policies probably won’t be enough to arrest China’s demographic decline. Here’s why.
In China, a hyper-traditional society, having a child out of wedlock is still frowned upon. Childbearing and childrearing are synonymous with marriage. Last year, the communist nation saw marriage rates hit a 35-year low. The sharp drop in marital vows comes at the same time China faces an impending demographic crisis. 2021 saw 7.6 million marriage registrations, the fewest since 1986. With falling birth rates and a rapidly aging population, China faces problems that are very much existential in nature.
In truth, China’s marriage crisis has been an issue for the best part of a decade. In the space of six years, between 2013 and 2019, the number of Chinese citizens getting married fell from 23.8 million to 13.9 million, a 41 percent drop. Of course, the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) ill-advised one-child policy, which was in place for 35 years (1980–2015), has resulted in far fewer people of marriageable age. The policy resulted in 400 million fewer babies being born.
China has also witnessed “changing attitudes to marriage, especially among young women who are becoming more educated and financially independent,” according to CNN. Due to “widespread workplace discrimination” and “patriarchal traditions,” an increasing number of women are saying no to marriage.
Some readers, I’m sure, will roll their eyes at the “patriarchal traditions” bit. If you happen to be one of them, I don’t blame you. I have been highly critical of the ways in which the “p word” has been weaponized and demonized by many individuals in the United States and beyond. However, patriarchal traditions look a little different in China than, say, the United States or the UK. The Chinese, we’re told, have a rather controversial saying: “If you don’t beat your wife every three days, she’ll start tearing up roof tiles.” A quarter of Chinese women are victims of domestic violence. Every 7.4 seconds a wife is beaten by her husband. As is clear to see, Chinese women can be forgiven for having second thoughts about marriage, especially if they were raised in an abusive household.
Besides the violence, there’s also another reason why fewer Chinese people are deciding to walk down the aisle. China is an incredibly expensive place to live. According to Mercer’s Cost of Living Index 2022, six of the biggest Chinese cities—Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Qingdao, and Nanjing—are among the top 10 most expensive cities on the Asian continent. Meanwhile, Hong Kong, more or less controlled by Beijing, is the most expensive city in the world. Not surprisingly, more Hong Kongers are saying no to marriage and no to starting a family. If one is struggling to pay rent, having a child is probably the last thing on their mind.
So what, some will say, cities in the United States, UK, and Western Europe are also ridiculously expensive to live in. Yes, they are. But China’s GDP per capita is less than $10,000. This places the country between the Balkan nation of Montenegro and Botswana, located in southern Africa. The United States, on the other hand, has a GDP per capita of $69,000.
For years, we have heard so much about China’s impressive GDP growth. At the same time, however, we have heard very little about its less-than-impressive GDP per capita.
What’s my point?
There are at least 90 million people currently working in Chinese factories. In a year, they can expect to earn roughly 55,000 RMB (less than $8,000). Even those working in more prestigious positions struggle to make more than $16,000 per year. By 2035, China’s GDP per capita is expected to be $28,700. Try getting married, paying rent, buying necessities, and starting a family on $28,700.
Moreover, it’s particularly difficult to start a family (or do anything of value) when you can’t find a job. Right now, China’s youth unemployment is close to 20 percent (8.1 percent in the United States (pdf)). Of course, China’s marriage problem isn’t exactly unique. Other countries around the world, including the United States, are also experiencing their own marriage-related issues. However, the size of the problem facing China and the CCP is, for lack of a better word, gigantic—especially now that its economy appears to be going down the proverbial lavatory.
Analysts at The Lowy institute, a Sydney-based think tank, insist that, even with “continued broad policy success,” China’s “annual economic growth will slow to about 3% by 2030 and 2% by 2040.” China’s economy, we’re told, appears to be suffering from a crisis in confidence among consumers. Is it any surprise? The average Chinese citizen, be they 25 or 75, is struggling to survive.
In an effort to address the marriage crisis, there’s always the chance that the CCP could use its cruel social credit system to punish adults who refuse to get married and start a family. The CCP might take inspiration from Russia, its close ally, where couples are currently being offered financial incentives to get married and have children. But, commonsense tells us that it will take a lot more than one-off payments and tax subsidies to solve China’s marriage situation, a problem that is fast becoming existential in nature. Money is a necessity, but it’s no substitute for genuine desire. Today, for reasons already explained, very few Chinese have any desire to get married. As the country becomes older and less efficient, expect the flame of desire to become even more faint.
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This was a very informative and helpful article.
Lots of facts slowly dished out, not a lot of opinionating and rhetoric in an effort to amuse.
Here’s the simple way to look at China’s problem. They had 40 years of a one child policy. After they repealed it, they found their population doesn’t want children anymore.
THEY ARE FUBARED!
What this means is the median age of a Chinese citizen is older than here in America.
According to Peter Zeihan China has miscounted it’s population by over 100 million. All of those 100 million were age 40 or younger. Two thirds of this 100 million were women.
Their population peaked 10 years ago. And by 2050 their population will be 650 million.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Me2G6FJZMI
2021 marriage registrations = 7.6 million
The author ignored the obvious - China has been terrorizing its people with Covid lock-downs for almost 3 years - what else will cause marriages to drop by HALF!? The CCP took a steady down-trend in marriages, and pushed it off a cliff. The same decline is occurring in births.
RE: China has been terrorizing its people with Covid lock-downs for almost 3 years
And it’s still ongoing with their crazy ZERO COVID policy.
Everyone is so screwed.
The rat race with ever diminishing returns, along with unrealistic expectations from delusional women about marriage and money have made young men around the world damningly aware that the only way to win is not to play.
Financial indebtedness starting at the moment of birth is slavery and cannot continue. The power brokers started with their parents' generation; "If you don't submit, we'll find others who will". These young men tell themselves, "I may be born such a slave but I won't have children born into it too."
We're past the tipping point. The world is witnessing regression across industries, infrastructure, mental development, institutional procedures, etc., as there are too many capable minds missing from the mix.
The one child policy has also led to a shortage of marriage aged women. Families that were faced with the requirement to have only one child often aborted or abandoned female babies because, in rural areas especially, male children were preferred to help in the fields or support their parents and to carry on the family name.
A nation with 1.3BILLION people is in no threat from a shrinking population.
Everything is happening at once, around the world.
It’s like it’s all planned.
It’s not the population, but the ratio of the productive vs the unproductive.
The optimal ratio is 5 working people for every person that isn’t working.
Yes. Just the facts.
Chicoms had no problem forcing abortion.
They’ll have no problem forcing pregnancies.
Money does not fund economies. There is no such thing as saving money. Productivity funds economies. As China’s population ages China is discovering this the hard way.
The biggest threat to China is the CCP.
>>>>The rat race with ever diminishing returns, along with unrealistic expectations from delusional women about marriage and money have made young men around the world damningly aware that the only way to win is not to play. <<<<
The expectations of many Chinese women is sky high. They want what is a rare man in China. And yet these men they want can choose whomever they want. The odds are not good for women with high standards to find a husband.
And I’m gonna give kudos to the average Chinese man. They call unmarried women over 25 years old, leftover women. The Chinese still value youth. It saddens me to see how American men simp and put onto a pedestal some of the women here in our country (older, past child bearing age, single moms, fat and so on and so on). I guess the average Chinese man would rather get it done right or not at all.
Back in the early 1990s, a recently arrived Chinese man told me that China's "one child" policy was being ignored and unenforced in rural areas, where most Chinese live.
The reason was, the CCP had an easy time regulating urban areas, but rural areas were mostly left to themselves.
Every continent's birth rates are going down, except Africa's.
The future is African.
I don’t think a shortage of females will matter to China. The men will raid neighboring countries for wives, and transfer the problem to them.
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