China allows couples to have three children • Hacker News Board

Re: China allows couples to have three children

#331

Post by powerapple » Tue, Jun 01, 2021, 6:28 AM UTC

kamfc wrote: post #233

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 a…

I believe the decision was made mainly over the concern of food supply. If you haven't already known, 195* many people died from hunger. Minorities have enjoyed more relaxing restrictions and often these policies are not enforced unless they have proper jobs (governments, CCP members and so on, breaking this could mean the end of your career). Many minorities are in small number to begin with, then the large minorities such as Tibetans and Uygurs are in tens of millions anyway. It is very different from Japan or other countries.

Re: China allows couples to have three children

#332

Post by powerapple » Tue, Jun 01, 2021, 6:33 AM UTC

kleton wrote: post #326

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…

Anchoring. A lot of people would otherwise only have the idea to have two, but you tell them they can only have 3, they might max out their limit.

Most of Chinese want to have a girl and a boy, some may go on to have another child if they are missing a girl or a boy. I do echo other comments that the limit of 3 is not necessary. I also don't see a declining population as a problem as economists see it. They weren't right to begin with. The main drive for productivity and economy output is going to be technology, not human labors anyway, with unlimited supply of money, you can increase consumption just by printing money. Even better, when you don't need to slave human for taxes, you don't need to increase their consumption anyway.

Re: China allows couples to have three children

#333

Post by woutr_be » Tue, Jun 01, 2021, 10:40 AM UTC

nobody0 wrote: post #98

woutr_be wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another result of this, is that males outnumber females, so there’s a lot of single males unable to find a partner. This is because parents generally preferred boys as their only child.

Yeah, however, the young generation is putting off their marriage year by year as in developed world. I can see the trend where people choose not to marry someone and/or not to have kids is picking up though may not be the mainstream any time soon. Partly because costs have been high, but also people find their interests elsewhere other than the traditional path.

True, many of my Chinese friends complain that their parents are urging them to get married before 30. And while plenty of young people still do this, more and more people are putting of getting married, and wait until they're really ready. Not just because society tells them to.

Re: China allows couples to have three children

#334

Post by throwaway894345 » Tue, Jun 01, 2021, 12:20 PM UTC

tolbish wrote: post #323

throwaway894345 wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fines seem like the most straightforward approach, though there are certainly tradeoffs with anything.

That only encourages those who have both the need and the abilityto prioritize budgeting/saving to think ttwice about having kids. In other words, that really only targets the middle class.

1. That’s still a net reduction in births, even if the reduction isn’t spread evenly among socioeconomic classes

2. You can means-adjust the fines to dissuade the rich. You can even redistribute revenue from these fines to the poor if your concern is inequality. I’m particularly curious about paying the poor not to have children since fining the poor seems likely to be unproductive.

Re: China allows couples to have three children

#335

Post by 6t6t6t6 » Wed, Jun 02, 2021, 12:06 AM UTC

refenestrator wrote: post #236

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.

Sinophobic propaganda on English speaking Internet has reached an amazing level. It's quite amazing how this can get unchecked so much.

Re: China allows couples to have three children

#336

Post by tediousdemise » Wed, Jun 02, 2021, 1:23 AM UTC

unnamed76ri wrote: post #76

Gotta love HN comment section on a story such as this. People here solving math problems more than questioning the power of a government to tell people how many children they are ALLOWED to have.

Human rights are irrelevant when they are having a drastic impact on the environment. Human reproduction is one of the most detrimental things there is for the environment.

The planet has a problem with human overpopulation. We must self-regulate as a species. Governments are good at making and enforcing regulations. China's government oversees one of the largest sectors of the human population.

We have to give some praise to China for being forward-thinking. They have recognized their role and responsibility in stopping the rampant breeding that plagues our planet. All governments need to take the same steps that China has, or the planet won't be inhabitable for much longer.

For more info, see http://www.vhemt.org/.

Re: China allows couples to have three children

#337

Post by aliasEli » Thu, Jun 03, 2021, 2:55 PM UTC

Many third world countries are trapped in a vicious circle. Because there is no functioning social security system, it is important to have many children because they will provide income for your family in the future. So on a micro level this makes sense. But on a macro level it is disastrous because the population growth will put even more pressure on your social security system.

The draconian policy of China enabled it to spend more resources on economic development. It is not so long ago that China was also a typical third-world country.

Re: China allows couples to have three children

#338

Post by aliasEli » Thu, Jun 03, 2021, 3:34 PM UTC

woeirua wrote: post #137

xyzzy123 wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This doesn't seem intrinsically terrible to me, particularly if it's done through incentives and doesn't involve say, murder or sterilisation. If we accept that any biome will eventually have a finite carrying capacity while the possibility of human reproduction is exponential it seems inevitable that there must be some limits to reproduction. Regulation is crude but might be less bad than "direct environmental feedb…

It turns out that as countries develop their birth rates naturally decline and eventually turn negative without requiring the government to set the number of children you can have. Indeed Japan and others are doing almost everything possible to encourage people to have more children and cannot get their populations to return to growth.

But a country with a rapidly growing population will struggle to grow economically, e.g. due to the increasing strain on natural resources. The GDP per capita growth of China between 1960 and 2018 is almost 4000%, while some other third world countries even had negative growth[0].

I am not saying that I agree with China's policies or their implementation, but it seems that they worked.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(real...

Re: China allows couples to have three children

#339

Post by birksherty » Fri, Jun 04, 2021, 6:15 PM UTC

dougmwne wrote: post #145

kubav wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Murders or "abortions" in final stages of pregnancy were commonly used in China to enforce this policy. See https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8923482/

Forced sterilization was also common. The whole thing is pretty indefensible if you have any respect for individual rights. https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/the-current-for-may-2-20...

What about the rights or consent of the human that's life matters most here, the child? When did anyone thought if the child wanted to be born with those parents who might be poor, unhealthy, genetic diseases that come to child, who is forced in all these without any way out? Should we only care about the parents?