Chinese women have had it. Their response to Beijing’s demands for more children? No.
Fed up with government harassment and wary of the sacrifices of child-rearing, many young women are putting themselves ahead of what Beijing and their families want. Their refusal has set off a crisis for the Communist Party, which desperately needs more babies to rejuvenate China’s aging population.
With the number of babies in free fall—fewer than 10 million were born in 2022, compared with around 16 million in 2012—China is headed toward a demographic collapse. China’s population, now around 1.4 billion, is likely to drop to just around half a billion by 2100, according to some projections. Women are taking the blame.
In October, Chinese Leader Xi Jinping urged the state-backed All-China Women’s Federation to “prevent and resolve risks in the women’s field,” according to an official account of the speech.
“It’s clear that he was not talking about risks faced by women but considering women as a major threat to social stability,” said Clyde Yicheng Wang, an assistant professor of politics at Washington and Lee University who studies Chinese government propaganda.
The State Council, China’s top government body, didn’t respond to questions about Beijing’s population policies.
That is the correct response.
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Honestly kind of happy for China for a change, this is a pretty big indication of women’s rights that they’re able to say No to begin with. I hope they continue to resist and eventually cause a larger change for the better across the region.
I hope they continue to resist and eventually cause a larger change for the better across the region.
Except that’s not what’s happening if you read the article, on either count.
Women aren’t resisting childbirth as an act of rebellion or as an exercise of their rights, there’s just too many competing pressures in their lives to table in having kids. Coupled with declining rates of attachment and a distraction-based economy, this isn’t a ‘win’ for anyone.
And population decline is a crisis we don’t know how to deal with. Old people have little economic output, but use up a lot of resources. It means the kids who are still born end up carrying a huge burden paying for and caring for older generations, they end up tax serfs in an aged care-based economy, and if older generations aren’t cared for you end up with human atrocities on a massive scale.
…
Most of these comments are problematic. You don’t have to have children, but for most people it has been a pretty consistent and natural inclination. Now a whole generation are convincing themselves they don’t want children when they really just can’t, and rather than holding those responsible to account and improving all our circumstances, they’re treating it as some personal victory.
Population decline is the opposite of a crisis. The whole economy can fuck right off, entire regions can become abandoned, it would still be a massive win to cut the total human population in half twice.
Any time someone calls “crisis” I always ask “crisis for whom?”
distraction-based economy
So true. More and more I’ve come to the realization that the ideal serving class is one that’s constantly distracted from their lives. You have a medium screen, a little screen, and a big screen, and the majority of us spend just about all day on them. The amount of ‘content’ to view and absorb is an ever growing behemoth that demands attention. You didn’t see the latest show/movie/tweet/tik-tok/sensationalized news story?? Then how are you going to relate to people who do??
with the advent of streaming services, I used to say this was the golden age of television, but really we’re just reached peak content. It’s all bread and circus, except they discovered they don’t even need the bread anymore. They don’t need to pay you enough for you to be fed and entertained, now it’s just enough that you have a screen with access to wifi.
A distracted worker doesn’t revolt. A distracted populace doesn’t concern themselves with the boring business of governing. A distracted nation doesn’t care about foundational societal issues like wealth inequality when there’s a new war every 6 months to have an opinion about. We’re so concerned with having an opinion that we forget to act on them.
Now here comes old money with their new problem, there aren’t going to be enough people to take advantage of in the future! who will they spit on with contempt, throw nickles at, and pay with experience? have more babies! they demand. because how else can they endlessly grow their wealth (and opinion of themselves) when there isn’t endless people to take advantage of?
Of course, all of us understand that endless growth of an organism destroys it’s host. Just like cancer, there’s just more and more of us, metastasized to ever region of the globe, into every niche pocket of despair we’re afforded by the circumstances of our birth. Our host is dying, and the ruling class says “keep growing, I’m not satisfied yet!” demanding we grow into our own destruction, solely for the ego of those who will be dead long before our collective death spiral concludes.
I’m thinking of starting a go fund me for a series of billboards that say only this:
“won’t someone rid us of these troublesome billionaires?”
Interesting points. Although endless growth may still continue, because eventually robots will be more affordable than human workers. Not because robots become cheaper, but because humans are more expensive.
I’m not some pie-in-the-sky future nut. I know the main issue is the short term problems. Like what do we do for the unemployed worker who can’t afford somewhere to live and has no investments? How can we deal with negative externalities like pollution and climate change?
These are the real challenges. Robots that talk to you and perform tasks are easy by comparison.
Why would anyone want kids while they can’t afford anything with no kids? If they want people to have kids, they better help them financially. You can’t have a child and leave them for strangers to raise them at daycares. Or have the mother sit home and the dad works 3 jobs to put food on the table. Fuck that.
The latter is how we do it. 💀
And it shouldn’t be that way. A human being doesn’t need to work 3 jobs to just fucking survive. I have worked 3 jobs and it sucked. I went months without seeing my son while he is awake, I left home while he was asleep and came back while he’s asleep. It was brutal.
As we all have known for a while now, capitalism has failed us. This is end game capitalism
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The allure of DINKs and solo living is too strong even when developed countries started to get really developed earlier on.
DINK life is fantastic!
DINK?
Edit: Ah, Dual Income No Kids!
Correct!!
Wait… Wait wait wait…
Mr. and Mrs. Dink, from the 90s cartoon ‘Doug’… Was that deliberate or a coincidence!?
Yeah, it’s really no wonder many are choosing not to have kids these days. It’s insanely expensive and inconvenient and governments do very little to make it financially attractive. At least in the US.
China probably wants to make more military reserves so they can have more manpower to invade Taiwan in the future after seeing their friend ruZZia flopped in Ukraine.
While I hope you are right regarding Russia, I’d be careful with sufh statements, nothing’s decided yet.
Increase education rates, reduce poverty, and give women more rights = fertility goes down. This is a good thing in theory, but society has to change its approach to designing the economy to handle a declining population.
If there’s one thing I know about the Chinese Communist Party, it’s that they take rejection and defiance in stride. At least this isn’t anything as dangerous as hunger strikes and students assembling in public squares so maybe they can save a little gas money on tanks and pressure washers this time around.
I’ve seen a bunch of comments expressing interest in the population declining. Since I don’t really want the Thanos approach, lowering the birth rate is great.
I propose sterilization for cash, like cash for clunkers. You get a bunch of free money if you decide you want fixed.
Think of the amount of people who’d take that deal. Long term, lower population, less social program spending, hopefully less people’s wanting abortions, win win. It goes against the rich people need for more workers, but you can dangle the lower welfare receipts, they’ll be all about that. 😋
Sorry, morbid humor among actual socioeconomic conversation.
I’m first in line for the nuts for bucks program!
China’s population, now around 1.4 billion, is likely to drop to just around half a billion by 2100, according to some projections. Women are taking the blame.
It does take two to tango.
Estimating the fuck-rate of my grandchildren’s grandchildren and being very concerned in a paper that can’t predict the next quarterly financial cycle correctly.
I think low birth rates are a product of a demanding system. In many cases it’s economic suicide to even entertain the idea of having children.
There is also the fact that the economy is collapsing in on itself since companies are pulling out of China in droves. It is a toxic business environment, ever since Trump’s presidency has ignited this whole nationalism tend among world politics things have been going downhill for younger generations it is like being a US citizen, and graduating in 2008 Imagine graduating with a degree, and there are no jobs available.
Loving this child free wave
From the 1 child policy to this?
I’d imagine a lot of people who were affected negatively by 1 child policy being absolutely pissed at seeing the government suddenly go “we miscalculated, pls start breeding like rabbits”
There’s a lot of crazy things in China that are related to this. Not just one child policy. There’s a whole crisis of sexuality in China.
Well there aren’t enough women because men are obsessed with family lines. Having one child. A male child was the preference, and in China older women are undesirable so I can see why there is a problem.
Do you have an article on that? I always think of Japan with that issue, or do I have that mixed up?
I think a lot of countries are having similar issues. I think South Korea is another one.
Hell, even most western countries have the same issues
But many of those same western countries level out the population decay with immigration. To my knowledge South Korea, Japan, and China don’t have as much immigration.
It’s obvious the country with more population it’s more likely to survive a final war apocalypse. This is why west countries are banning abortion and contraceptives while east ones are urging women to have more children.
Edit, BTW in other news, Ukraine it’s running out of cannon meat. Now recluting overseas citizens.
