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China allows couples to have three children

bbc.com

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Re: China allows couples to have three children

#231

Post by mcculley »

Amezarak wrote: post #203
mcculley wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am amused at the phrase "communist buerocrats [sic]". I live in the United States, where a particular bastard hybrid of socialism and crony capitalism requires that every birth be well documented by bureaucrats.

You don't have to have a birth certificate in the US, but the average life will be very difficult without it. https://gazette.com/news/born-in-the-usa-without-a-shred-of-...

Indeed. This is why I wondered why the comment was singling out communist bureaucrats.

Re: China allows couples to have three children

#232

Post by dirtyid »

throw0101a wrote: post #197
dirtyid wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The birth rate had already dropped, and had been dropping for over a decade, before the policy kicked in. That was due to the original 2-child policy from the 70s. To rephrase accurately: "family planning" prevented ~300M births, adjusted downward from 400M since 100M+ previously unregistered birth was logged since reversion to two child policy again. There's no credible analysis that suggest PRC family planning pol…

> That was due to the original 2-child policy from the 70s. [citation needed] Where is there more information on this? I do not see it mentioned for China: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-child_policy The birth rate also started falling in the 1960s: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Birth_rate_in_China.svg * https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/SPDYNTFRTINCHN > There's no credible analysis that suggest PRC fami…

>[citation needed]

I'm surprised this isn't covered on wiki, or at least PRC family planning article.

https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/martinwhyte/files/challeng...

Pg 149.

>Was China's Birth Control Program Voluntary in the 1970s?

>With these ambitious goals a national campaign of mandatory birth planning was put into full motion. The slogan that summarized the three demographic components of the campaign was “later, longer, and fewer” (wan, xi, shao 晚、稀、少). “Later” referred to the effort to enforce late marriage—at least after age 25 for brides and 27 or 28 for grooms in the city, and after 23 for brides and 25 for grooms in the countryside. “Longer” referred to requiring greater intervals between permitted births—at least four years. “Fewer” meant limits on the number of births allowed—no more than two children for urban families and three for rural families, with penalties for those who did not comply

>falling in the 1960s

With respect to graph, plot some 101 PRC history. Early 60s... residual of Great Leap Forward famines. Mid 60s onwards... Cultural Revolution. Until mid 70s.. when Two Child Policy went into effect, then One Child. These were not periods of general development. This was a period when PRC was still incredibly impoverished, and the default strategy for poverty generally is to have many children because you can not ensure all their survival and to maximize chance of being taken care of.

>would have achieved the same result

There are several averted birth studies for PRC family planning ranging from 100s of million to 1 billion by mid century accounting for descendants. The consensus is family planning is responsible for maintaining low births. I suppose we'll have to see how India manages, they started with 70% of PRC population in 1950s and is set to surpass PRC by a 300M @ 1.7B by 2050s. If argument is development, PRC didn't pass India in per capita GDP until early 90s. That said PRC under communism was more egalitarian for women, but education didn't pick up / restart until after the famine and revolutions either.

E: But most information shows PRC without family planning would have pushed ~1.7B-2B people, maybe they would have hit carrying capacity before, but 500 extra million mouths to feed and alleviate poverty is no joke. IMO, it's a sufficiently massively structural demographic problem that would have caused the country to implode.

Re: China allows couples to have three children

#233

Post by kamfc »

stanrivers wrote: post #214

A lot of people are asking why a policy is even still needed - why not go for no limit at all? 1) There is an entire family planning bureaucracy within the CCP setup to manage this; would do you do with all those people if they are not needed anymore? 2) China is more strict on population planning for certain minorities - not officially, but in the background; think Muslims in western China or Tibet or Mongolians, or…

I've always wondered about the timing when population control was first implemented, and their intent.

1. Did population control allow Han Chinese/CCP to maintain their dominance in size over the growing minorities who were largely still living the agrarian lifestyle? 2. Minorities' would have their growth exponentially reduced over a hundred year. 3. And by increasing it now, Han Chinese can now exponentially grow again with momentum over minorities.

So in the background, it seems there's more than meet the eye to maintain Han Chinese power over other minorities in the country.Similar to Japanese (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ainu_people) and other "race"; same strategy and intent, different tactic.

Re: China allows couples to have three children

#234

Post by oreally »

lammalamma25 wrote: post #127

Every story about China should include a note that the government decides how many children its citizens are allowed to have. We've grown numb to how terrible this is.

Would you be willing to pay for their excess population then? As a US citizen? Because the excess population puts more pressure on China's infrastructure and you're pushing for no birth control.

Re: China allows couples to have three children

#236

Post by refenestrator »

stanrivers wrote: post #214

A lot of people are asking why a policy is even still needed - why not go for no limit at all? 1) There is an entire family planning bureaucracy within the CCP setup to manage this; would do you do with all those people if they are not needed anymore? 2) China is more strict on population planning for certain minorities - not officially, but in the background; think Muslims in western China or Tibet or Mongolians, or…

Historically, minorities were allowed to have more children than Han Chinese, FYI. Han only reached the same child allowance recently.

Re: China allows couples to have three children

#237

Post by sudosteph »

rainworld wrote: post #228

Westerners so enthusiastic about “China’s demographic problem” would be well advised to worry about their own, local sub-replacement birth rates, in particular for natives (you know, the ones who built the countries everybody else seems so hell-bent immigrating to), as well as for the educated, the middle classes. Also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19095925

I'm guessing you don't mean "natives" in the modern sense. But I am still one of those people who's ancestors have been in this country since the 17th century, and I don't get what worries you. I was always taught that being American is not about being a particular race or ethnicity. Heck, my family couldn't even tell you our ethnicity other than "white". And I may be educated middle class, but my grandparents who grew up in the Appalachian mountains sure weren't.

So long as the children of immigrants are adapting fine to the rest of American culture, who cares if our population growth depends on them?

Re: China allows couples to have three children

#238

Post by oreally »

OminousWeapons wrote: post #226
ginko wrote: post #2

It feels strange to me why they're not just getting rid of the limit at this point. Especially since they already seem to have trouble getting couples to have two children.

I agree. From what I understand from Chinese friends, this is sort of an irrelevant move. Chinese culture demands fully supporting your children financially throughout their adult lives, including fully financing education, purchasing homes for them, and purchasing vehicles for them. As you might expect, this is extremely expensive and difficult to scale up to 3 kids.

Seems like you some rich chinese friends. It's a bit of a stretch though to say the culture is to purchase homes and vehicles for each child though. It's more likely they'll be sharing sharing 1 ancestral house and 1 family vehicle.

Re: China allows couples to have three children

#239

Post by skybrian »

rainworld wrote: post #228

Westerners so enthusiastic about “China’s demographic problem” would be well advised to worry about their own, local sub-replacement birth rates, in particular for natives (you know, the ones who built the countries everybody else seems so hell-bent immigrating to), as well as for the educated, the middle classes. Also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19095925

Historically much of the US was built by immigrants, and it’s still the case that recent immigrants do a lot of work. They could do more if allowed. So, if you think that the demographic problem is not enough workers it could fairly easily be solved.

Re: China allows couples to have three children

#240

Post by kec »

infinity0 wrote: post #51
stefan_ wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is another graph here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_China#/media/F... Which shows a massive male surplus particularly in the young demographics, way larger than you would biologically expect. How can we claim this policy has no effect if clearly people are still killing female infants?

You should always compare the data against other countries before jumping to hasty conclusions based on your own prejudices and confirmation biases. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:China_single_age_populati... - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:USA2020dec1.png The proportional male surplus in China is just over double that of the US. Of course there is something different happening in China, but asserting that…

The natural ratio between male and female births averages around 51:49, the US is almost bang on this number. China is currently closer to 55:45... clearly there is some unnatural pressure going on.
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