China's Shrinking Population: How Will It Cope With Fewer Workers? | Insight | Full Episode
China recorded a drop in population for the first time in six decades, an outcome of its One-Child Policy. It is the first country to “get old before it gets rich”. It is a problem that President Xi Jinping has noted in several speeches.
Even if the government is successful in encouraging Chinese citizens to have more babies, it will still face an aging population in the short and medium term. Already, the country is experiencing a shortage of workers in some industries.
Could external and internal migration, or even raising the retirement age, be solutions? And if not, can Beijing rely on robots and A.I to make up the shortfall?
00:00 Introduction
1:37 Why is China's population declining?
07:13 Fewer workers: foreign talent exodus
13:18 Can African labour help increase workforce in China?
24:55 Internal migration: engine of growth no more
30:35 China's apathetic young workers: productivity troubles
35:59 Could raising retirement age help labour shortage?
43:07 Robotics & AI to boost productivity in China
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Those who pretend concern about a 'worker shortage' are really concerned about a lack of consumers, not workers.
China economy will shrink for the next 20 years. They needs to down size their army and the world will be safer.
Also don't want to pay decent wages.
Well 98 percent of those "customers" are not consumers. Can factory worker buy and expensive car what he produces ? They cry only of because one problem that there will be less cheap labour force and profits will shrink. Economy and competetivnes is thing that few percent benefit from and others get peanuts just to get by.
It was actually both lol
Seriously lol
Otherwise what do you want? Raising a kid to study 24 hours just enough to get into a half decent college. And then graduate, and then work for a company that has a boss claiming working 996 is a blessing to human?
don't bother exporting this china work ethic (lack of a better word, indeed the opposite of ethic) to us!
That’s pretty much the whole of East Asia (incl. fast growing South East Asia) these days
I lie flat
With exception of the best brains, college graduates will not be in great demand in the future. Great demand in skill workers, skill technician, hands-on engineers. Their technical education start at Gr 9. They'll be the backbone of multi-billions chip plants, internet hubs, heavy industries, even AI, etc.
College isn't necessary. Why would you subject your kid to that?
The practice of having children has become more of a burden for almost every young family. Imagine coming home from work late at night, dreaded and tired, sex would probably be one of the last things on their mind.
Yup and who wants kids if you have no place to live
This is the situation all over the world. Cost of living is too high, the rich have all the money. No one can afford to raise a family.
Ok be ready to become Muslim. They are growing 6 to 11 kids per wife And some of them have four wives.
So average humans are reduced to just "workers" ...for the rich. That's sick.
Brilliant doco. However, one of the most important underlining cause was not mentioned: income inequality. Young people don't want to have families, young people don't want to work hard because they are not being treated as valued workers or even person. The media boss is hilarious talking about his young workers don't want to work hard. Of course they don't when they are getting paid peanuts to be on-call 24/7. None of the polices will make any different, and the society will die and die fast when it does not value or respect people on a fundamental level.
Well said.
The communist CCP doesn’t respect anyone or anything except itself. May it crash and burn in excruciating pain, never to rise again.
Sounded like a typical boomer complaining about the strawberry generation.
so young people should teach their Boss how to be a good boss. I really do not think it is a good idea to work hard in a small company in China if you want to be rich enough to get a decent and stable life. maybe working hard to run a business should be a good way, after all, the economy in China is still very strong.
@@kexusun3107 not really, China economy never been worst. We can see this clearly from the properties crisis and 40% youths unemployment. Chinese savings have gone up multiple fold. This show chinese people are not spending and confidence are at it weakest. Not wise to dump money into a blackhole, you will loose your pants. Chinese companies moved to Vietnam and other SEA countries, that show how bad things were with China economy.
Young people are telling the story. That old “ mentality “ work till you die is no longer what they will stand for . Why work hard when I won’t make enough to ever buy a home or feel comfortable to start a family . It makes sense
not to mention the things a person has to learn in their lifetime, and it keeps adding every year. things are getting more and more complicated in general, 100 or even 50 years ago you could study and be set for life, now u pretty much have to be constantly improving to compete
So easy for people who work in air conditioned buildings and have never done an honest day of labor to decide to raise the retirement age.
People who don't work in air conditioned buildings in China usually don't have pension thus no such thing as retirement.
@@simlylife9718 Agreed
一毛钱退休金都没有 何来退休年龄一说 监狱养老才是王道
Just because it's not physical work doesn't mean it's not work
I feel like if they wanted a good opinion on how to fix these issues, they should have asked the people it would affect the most. They interviewed one young person,, then a bunch of old heads who are in charge of everything, and won't have to face the repercussions of the decisions they are making for everyone else. Then the older generations are saying "they are just too lazy" and the younger generation is saying, "well what's the point if it won't do me any better in the future?" They are literally telling them the problem, and they refuse to listen. Until they do listen, there won't be any kind of actual change.
Yeah... Now I totally relate why ancient european mythology was all about sons killing their fathers.. seems less gruesome now...
really not a conflict between the young and the old, but a matter of how decisions are generally made in China. Public opinions are ever the more ignored, pervasive disgruntling is banned and checked on internet. Feedback set aside and nothing towards solution will ever take place at all.
Yep, that boss' attitude screams "oh, my workers are just happy with simply being able to eat and drink well with some shopping every once in a while (AKA just happy living with the necessities with some nice things every once in a while) means that I can't exploit my workers' dreams and ambitions to make them work harder for peanuts in order to attain an illusive dream." They're really angry that we've adjusted our expectations to meet reality and refuse to play a rigged game
I've lived in China for 10 years, and the apathy is something I have also noticed amongst the youth. More and more people, of all generations, appear to be more cynical about the future now. A far cry from 10 years ago when people were so much more optimistic and upbeat. I have family in China so these looming problems do concern me.
US dollar and the western world is on the way to collapse obviously in 2023. All Chinese around me are very optimistic about China's future especially this year. And Chinese people are more optimistic about the future than that of 10 years ago because we are witnessing China's industrilization is leading the world and eclapse the Western one.
In your dream man
No, people are more pessimistic than 10 years ago. The best era for the young in China is from 1990 to 2012 and also the relatively free times.
@@span6947 Me?
@@TWisDOG1 Yes Chinese destroyed Canada. None of you in the region can be trusted. And the fools with your Asian kids and wives -stay there
I wonder if the Nigerian commentator has actually thought about what they’ve said. That essentially it’s OK to pay Africans less than half for the same job because “they’re happy with it”. Then in 5-10 years’ time, he’ll be complaining about pay equality and they can just pay this clip back at him. Equal pay or the highest rate as possible should be the aim, not “pay me little and I’ll be OK” ☹️
Africans themselves were major slave traders, now they blame others for their misfortunes.
sad situation but because of competition people have to cope
Yep, that mentality is what makes manufacturing jobs as being seen as "low value," because the salaries are low. Sorry, not sorry, but people don't go to work for the sake of their health, they go to work because they have bills to pay in order to live. If the job doesn't pay you enough, then it becomes low value. If they want more people working in these jobs, shut up and pay them properly.
@@irondragonmaiden exactly. But the buyers want max profits for their pockets. they dont care that they are exploiting those workers. So is only normal there is push back now. Everything is more expensive, so those workers won’t be able to survive and have to push. It is all based on their work, whole business. No matter what anyone says about ceo of some company in Europe, there would be nothing without these workers. if their work is paid for them to just barely exist, that is very bad
He needs to return to the country whence he came! We the Chinese do NOT desire him to be here!!!
CNA never disappoints! One thing to mention is that raising the retirement age is only a temporary solution by keeping China's "baby boomer generation" employed a bit longer. But the generation in their 40s is already smaller, so the work force is going to shrink either way, just not as fast and not as early. Pretty much all developed countries struggle with this as well, but no other country has to deal with such a high total number of missing workers as China.
Not a problem currently, they still have 40% unemployed graduates and youths. More jobs are needed now, not workers.
@@ericphua2359 I think those are two different phenomena. On one hand, you're right that China has too few tech and government jobs for university graduates. But meanwhile China also needs more workers in sectors like agriculture and manufacturing. For the latter China's MoE forcasts 30 million job vacancies by 2025.
@@robezy0 LOL, China manufacturing do not needs more workers now, what they needs are more orders from US and Europe. But US and Europe try diversified their supply chain. So China hope Russia can make up the difference, but pootin is a disappointment. With robotics and automation, manufacturing don't needs more workers. Even Foxconn moving production line to Vietnam and India, because of cost savings. Tens of thousands of manufacturing workers becomes jobless, where got lack of workers? Many go into food delivery, cause earning in this sector to drop until they barely survive. The focus now should be jobs, jobs and jobs.
@@robezy0 LOL, forecast 30 millions jobs available? You go and ask the Chinese believe or not, I have no comments. Land of lies.
@@ericphua2359 this estimate is literally from the Chinese government 🤦♂️
If youth unemployment is over 10%, shrinking population shouldn't be an issue 🤷
Unemployment is usually in high value jobs while lack of labor force is in low value and manufacturing jobs. So it's problematic.
@@SunilMeena-do7xn if theres a lack of labor in the "low value" jobs maybe they should be increased in value
@@SunilMeena-do7xn The entire reason manufacturing jobs and other "low value" jobs have a shortage is because the salaries are horrible. I mean, I get that the Fabian fellow thinks that manufacturing pays well, but those numbers aren't enough for living decently in even a medium city. The era of "we can pay these blue-collared workers peanuts because there's thousands that are desperate to accept shitty working conditions" is dead. Adapt and make those jobs high-paying or die.
@@irondragonmaiden You can't because the manufacturing goes to cheaper labour countries (as it is doing). The industries that are uncompetitive with export based products must now die - and they are. The domestic manufacturing companies - they can up the salaries but there has to be demand. Where is it? Salaries are sideways at best and consumer demand is poor at the moment. I agree, China will not collapse very soon, but for the next 25 years it will face chronic issues and move sideways as an economy too.
Youth unemployment is now greater than 21%
China: High unemployment rate. Also China: We need more labors.
Need blue labors
@@consp51 more like they needs more slave.
The high unemployment rate is the young white collar sector, The manufacturing sector is short of workers.
@@deezeed2817 Too many colleges students. China should start importing blue workers.
@@deezeed2817 manufacturing supply chain moving to Vietnam, no more shortage of workers.
Not only in China, Korea and Japan too. Their housing markets are significantly declined due to growing aging populations.
Sure, others have population decline and real estate bubbles, but the current housing bubble in parts of China is pretty extreme, with housing costing something like 8 times the average workers annual salary in Japan, and 35-50 times the average yearly wage in some areas of China. And China is continuing to add to the oversupply of huge empty apartment buildings of questionable safety and quality, as land sales and rapid, mass building are a huge part of taxes/government income, so the bubble keeps inflating, but can’t indefinitely.
India, bangladesh, indonesia, Philippines can't relate 🤣
Then import some Indian population
Like animals, we won’t procreate if resources are lean or oppressive.
Pakistan, North Korea and Indonesia will rule the world.
Popping the housing bubble, correcting overvalued/hyperinflated real estate prices, will solve the affordability crisis for young people. However, governments will continue to keep them inflated because that is where older generations store their wealth. It's a question of which generation is favored and more important to society: The young who invest in the future by raising a family or the elders who hold political and economic power.
Housing bubble burst already. Price is falling rapidly. Foreign reporters are predicting doom again, financial hurricane.
The older generations will never relinquish their hold on power and that's a fact. Not just in asia but all over the world.
Yup it's happening all over the world. Here in Australia we have a housing supply crisis but the older generations with houses refuse to let apartments to be built on their street (for fear of devaluing their property). Government isn't building enough subsidized housing, and rents/mortgages are rising due to interest rates, causing the poorer members of society to become homeless. The older generations have multiple properties (bought when prices were cheap) and many rent theirs out to Airbnb, making the housing crisis worse.
They won’t do that, because they get too much from real estate.
@@TTW-lp3jc Very true for leaders who need votes. Older people always vote. Young people vote less.
I don't know know why people always see shrinking populations as a problem. In a crowded city you soon realize that too many people isn't actually a good thing for anyone....
Because they don’t really care about quality of life, they just care about whether they can sustain infinite growth of profits to sustain capitalism. To have profits keep going up year after year, you need more and more consumers and more and more workers so that those workers will have to accept low wages. Not enough consumers don’t buy enough and labor shortages mean having to pay more to get people to work for you instead of paying them less and increasing the profits.
what do you expect from a country whose main culture is 9-9-6? Did you even think the people who are overworked to death would still want to raise a family? where do you think they will get the time for it and also the money? Since the pay is comparable to peanuts. The problem is too obvious and is biting them in the face they just don't want to change it.
Agree. I think it’s actually should be a crime to bring any innocent new soul to that land if the parents know their baby will grow up being hyper-stressed during school and could not make basic living without 996 after graduation
Elon makes his people sign a contract to work 80 hours a week. So 9-9-6 is only 72 hours a week.
@@nickl5658 US Corp are most kind to Chinese.
@@nickl5658 those contract are made in such a way cuz those specific job roles require that amount of dedication, and in return the pay is really good. I don't think for normal worker it makes sense to work sacrificing every other aspects of life i.e. 996 with nothing in return
@@cacateeah Exactly. And this applies to people all over and in the US. You are sadistic to breed children despite knowing that the environment is unstable and unsafe simply from your own selfishness for another life.
CNA : China’s population is declining Shows people packed into subways like sardines
Every country: we have housing shortages, food insecurity, wage stagnation, a crumbling middle class Also every country: why aren’t people having babies?
Singapore is also aging population so this serve as a reminder for us too. Thanks for covering this
More population just means cheaper labor. As a human and as a part of the workforce, why would anyone wanna be cheap labor just to boost a country's economy and fame. People who were born already had no choice but at least they can choose to not let their offspring experience non-human work environment and low pay
I have a brother while other families only have one child. The price of apartment is too high now, they force people to buy it, every new family can't afford it in marriageable age without their parents' support. Under both son preference and economic pressure, my parents won't give me any help although they have three apartments. It's hard to give my children common level education and safe living environment in China. If you are common class, the more children you have, the more rate your children don't willing and able to have next generation. They will have less competitive. For people like me, have only one or none child is not just a choice, but a result. There is little protection for women in China, including equity of family resources, recognition of the value of reproduction, no such law exists. That's one of the reasons why females don't want more children. Also, men have high pressure in economic, some of them don't want children too.
Yea true they put the high pressure on men to do all work and get rid of the women because they see no value in them.😬
Go to rural china where 6 children is the norm
@@chrillsimslovesgretathunbe9771 In fact, rural families cannot afford to raise 6 children, except for the kind of beast that chains women as a fertility tool. Before raising children, parents should consider how many children they can afford. It is not funny to only pursue quantity.
@@chrillsimslovesgretathunbe9771 and rural China has problem of abandoned kids left to raise themselves..
In my country there's no pressure on men having to have a house to get married. Couples buy a house of their own when they marry, or rent until they want to move.
who want to give birth to children with the high unemployment ，high education cost ，high prices of house even the strange engagement culture？
I was there from 2009 to 2012... golden years... really awesome time... the govt and business structure has shown its true and ugly colors now.
It's seriously so sad.
It is a system problem.
Does Xi Xiping have to do with it? Given that he was elected as President in 2012 it seems that his policies and rule has created these problems..
China doesn't have enough jobs for it's people, so there's nothing to worry about. The unemployment rate of university graduates is 20%, this means shrinking population is not a bad thing at all.
Very good documentary. Very informative. Thank you.
Can you imagine what is life like in China, it’s packed everywhere, in weekends you have a long queue for the dinner, wait in at least one hour, so for me, population shrinking is not a bad thing
The problem is that their economy relies on a large amount of cheap labor and with all those people aging..whose going to take care of them.
Economic growth is one thing - individual happiness is a separate issue.
Actually I have a friend teaching English in Shanghai that has countered that argument. The population decline is palpable.
You are a bonafide moron.
Who will TAKE care of the old Chinese people, and Chinese dogs?😆😁😄
I think what CNA was trying to point out about China and this issue is that they are making grandiose policy decisions as they did with the one-child policy. The problem is that you can't make major policy changes like that and think that the people are going to listen to you and do what you want them to do. Time has shown that this is not the case and even the one-child policy has dubious results. You can't just socially engineer people on such a large scale and this is being born by how the Chinese populous reacts to such governmental intrusion, ie 3-child policy.
The one-child policy was a disaster, some even rumors it was manipulated by outside interests. But that's a weakness of a centralized gov without speech freedom. They got a lot to learn from the Singapore gov.
YES AND NOW look where it has gotten them!!!! It was a ridiculous policy to begin with. It’s brought about by egotistical people, and their desire to rule the world………
@@consp51 forget it. You guys are a city country. Our country happens to be one of the largest countries on earth by landmass and the top in terms of population. It’s not easy governing such a huge country. The country couldn’t have coped with an uncontrolled rise in population and you can attribute China’s comeback to the fact that there was good leadership and enough resources to improve the lives of the population. China is the economic engine of Asia and dare I say the world. The whole world relies on trade with China both imports and exports. The majority of the world has China as its main economic partner and most countries if not all import more than they sell to us. Your comments come from a place of arrogance and superiority that is clearly unfounded. Singapore is also a country that is 70% made up of Chinese people. Chinese people the world over have helped their economies and in Asia at least they usually are well off and have political representation. I think you have a lot to learn from the Chinese. We are the leaders in clean energy and we are able to ideate and implement policy change swiftly. No other country in the world is changing the world as much as we are. We are leading the way for a more democratic world in which all countries can govern themselves and not have to follow orders from gringos. You can’t speak of democracy when you don’t even respect the will of your own people, the sovereignty of other countries to their territory and especially when you don’t engage in bilateralism. Democracy as defined by the west is the ability to cast a vote every 4-5 years. Democracy is more than that and it’s certainly not a political tool. I don’t see Singapore being a major disruptor historically or currently on the world stage. China set the tone for the rest of east Asia and south East Asia, countries whose cultures are heavily based on ours. You need a reality check.
@@consp51 I don’t know what kind of freedoms you think you have but we don’t. We don’t need to complain about mundane things because we have good lives, we certainly have seen our quality of life soar throughout the years and will continue to do so. If you think you have freedom of speech go ahead. Your voice is insignificant when you won’t be heard. In China things get done because if the people aren’t happy the government has no validity. The government has support and was established specifically because the ROC looked after foreign interests as opposed to ours. You’ve never been to China. Don’t claim to know anything about us. By contrast, many Chinese people know more about other countries than you do and we are certainly not going around focusing on others and criticising, our government doesn’t. We focus on ourselves as per our culture but I flip out when I see my country or my people attacked due to ignorance or the pursuit of western neocon agendas. Anti China sentiment will most certainly affect all East Asians indirectly when they travel abroad or those of us who live abroad.
@@grape.juices I am Chinese so I know China well. I just simply comparing China and Singapore, both share some Big Gov management types. But Singapore is a lot more transparent than the Chinese local gov.
unless the government can offset the downside of having a child, people won't get children. 1. less incomes 2. more expenses 3. less time for yourself 4. less space
journalists seeing babies as future workers 😂
Governments , you mean
No idea what to say but a dude said that youths in China were facing massive jobless crisis.
It’s scary to start a family in China
It’s even more scary in Singapore 🇸🇬. Education is a nightmare.
it's even more scary in USA coz the LGBTQ lol
@@lktan224 but as bad as in China. Y’all suck
I heard that post-covid many Chinese and foreigners are moving to (or trying to move to) Guangdong. In fact Guangdong -- specifically the GBA cities -- is one of the few provinces in China that's experiencing population growth + strong property market.
Guangdong is coming out a scheme to send 300,000 youths to seek employment in rural area within the next few years. The youth unemployment rate in China is more than 20%
LOL. The property markets in Guangdong crushed and crushed again. Many property developers bankrupt and delisted from HK stock exchange.
@@ericphua2359 Well, "crushed" largely because of the pandemic and weak economic activity. Thankfully that's over and prices are starting to pick up in Guangzhou, Dongguan, Zhuhai, etc. Also the population in GBA cities is undeniably increasing which will create further demand along the line.
@@twist777hz hopefully so
More business still closing shop, more workers loosing jobs. More outflow of people. Properties price still crushing.
Good video. Also found that the uniqlo in Sanlitun has been replaced by Gentle Monster now.
Why raise the retirement age when they resist hiring people over 35?
The key is to address the root of the problem, the underlying assumptions and behavior patterns that led to all that trauma(problem) in the first place
The Chinese culture and society have undergone seismic shifts since the 1980s. Having children used to be something like a religious duty in the otherwise secular Chinese society. In the past, many women indeed risked and sacrificed a lot to have more than one child. But now, people born in the 90s and 00s increasingly choose not to have any children at all, and social media is flooded with posts and videos about the DINK lifestyle and how to confront bossy parents/older relatives/older coworkers who tell you that you must have children. Myself, my girlfriend, and her sister all want no children at all. For her mother, not having a child feels almost like the end of the world. For us, having a child would feel like the end of the world!
Oh, no, Chinese are only 1.4 billion??! How will they ever survive??
1.5 billion is the highest in the world, USA 350 million
I LAUGHED OUT LOUD when seeing protesters against retirement age postponing in France, because you would never underestimate how Chinese people can tolerate Government abusive policies especially in smaller cities and urban areas.
isnt a population decline the goal of every gov these days?
That's not only in China nowdays nobody wants to have kids unless you are a millionaire and can afford a nice home and nannies
No wonder the Chinese live longer, retirement between 50-60, is amazing. It also allows those who are worn out with physical labour or who are sick to rest. It allows all those who wish to continue to work because they're fit well and happy to work can do so. China is better than my cou try! ! Retirement is now 68!!! This is unfair and ridiculous.
Shrinking population will relieved the pressure on infrastructure and economy.
So it's their first drop in population, they got plenty of room to maneuver then, most countries have already experienced drop in population, their immediate neighbours South Korea and Japan, especially, then across the ocean there's the US and EU too that are always desperate for immigrants. China still has many options, lifting one child policy is just the most obvious one and honestly, it's time, they can farm enough food to feed their own population now. They have many other moves which many developed countries already exhausted, from increasing the retirement age (surprisingly low), implementing/encouraging less hectic work lifestyle, sponsoring parents for each babies, tax reliefs, marriage counselling before divorce, immigrant/foreign workers etc.
China's population is shrinking. It's a biggest nation in the world. So it will shrink to the population size of USA, Japan, Europe etc. Are these places unable to cope with such a 'small population' that they currently have. At the rate that technology is advancing, workers on this planet will be replaced by robots pretty soon. In fact, with an overly large population, the bigger problem for China is how to find employment for its people if automation reduces the need for human labor.
All Province Government enmass to much debt, that some even has problems managing interest of these debt. No money for any incentive. They even have to reduce civil servant work forces and pensions.
You have a point with everything else, but the one child policy was lifted in 2015.
It's better not to be even BORN into a WICKED system such as this.
There are few points missing on this report Foreigners are limited to wire money out of China to $500/day. They expect foreigners to spend most of their income domestically. Foreigners with special skills are granted special permit, such as fashion design and marketing, graphic design, interior design etc. I was recruited to teach in Guangzhou for design and marketing subjects between 2009-2013. My school was near the little Africa in this report, many African there speak Mandarin😅. The business activity were going on until midnight due to the time zone in Africa. That area was also little xingzgian, manu Chinese Muslim selling BBQ till pass midnight on the streets. The left trash all over the streets, locals complaining, they also didn't pay taxes. Its not likely China will embrace immigrants workers, trading or businessmen or business women are welcome. It's plain racism, they called all foreigners" guao-low" means ghost. Unlike Canada or US, China has existed for millions of years with its own people, they don't need immigrants to build the country. China official name is translate as CENTRAL COUNTRY. Maybe racism doesn't apply there, they had this country since the beginning of time, they can decide who are their people.
Postpond retirement age? What about getting the college graduate replacing the retired first?
Population is srinking due to the leadership of the country. People are leaving !
CNA is my only go to documentary now. Superb job done. Go well CNA team !!
I love how in depth this video is.
If a government wants the population to rise they need to: 1. Provide jobs with better pay and benefits. 2. Provide affordable housing 3. Treat women with respect and allow them full body autonomy. 4. Change the culture of misogyny and sexism that runs rampant in that country.
What an absolutely enthralling documentary, I found myself rewinding segments to digest the info and the broad spectrum of the topics covered I often had overlooked. Very well produced, great scope of prospective from many view points. This was a very high calibre presentation, full of facts not hype. Thank you to those concerned
Would be cool if in these profiles, Africa would stop being treated like one blob when it's the largest, most diverse continent on the planet. Anyway it's very sad to see what's happening to China but this is their government's fault directly. Even the internal migrants are leaving. Friend of mine has family there, came back to California anyway. 38:23 She's very spoiled. That's the norm in the United States and many people work until 70. I feel like maybe China has made too many mistakes at the same time. I'm also curious why the mass migration into Vietnam isn't being addressed? Will we just ignore the 1.3 million workers who gave up and left China and won't return even though they are from there? That should REALLY worry the government a lot but they seem indifferent.
Africa is not the largest continent, what?? And diversity is subjective
50+ countries with their own cultures and subcultures sound pretty diverse
Diverse? They all black
@@kagnetix6674 Europe has many black people and arabs too, Iranians are not the same to Japanese, and Indians are very different from people in Vladivostok for example so Europe and Asia are more diverse skin color wise
@@kria9119yes it is. It is purposely made small on the map. Do your research
No big deal...fewer people on earth means better for all other animal species!
The population density in China is so overwhelming around their cities that this phenomenon is easily seen although it is happening all around the world. Because China is the world's industry, it is expected that they maintain a high work ratio. But they are human, and will feel the effects of disease, mental health, and economic challenges. I imagine their younger populace would have been privy to the excessive workload of Generation X and would not want to go through that.
My company is sending like 70% of our production jobs to China and theyre working on their own suppliers for raw materials. I personally think its a bad idea since we were doing just fine here...moving our production to China just stimulates the American economy less.
I think this is a good news. I hope more and more countries aware of the problems of over populated people. Lesser people lesser problem 😊
Even in a country where people have been conditioned for so many years to blind obedience, eventually the human spirit and longing for freedom will say, "NO". As in "No,...you cannot force us to have more children when You (the government) have made it so extremely difficult for us just to get by, much less better ourselves".
Very informative, thanks!
“Encouraged” people to have less children is a bit of an understatement.
"Among young Chinese there's a growing disdain for blue color work." That sounds much like the US, Canada and Western Europe as well.
China and the West are going in the right direction population wise. As resources become more scarse, a smaller population garantees there's enough for all and the regeneration of ecology. It's Africa, parts of Asia and South America going the wrong way. Our home planet is on the brink of collapse. If we keep growing in number like locusts, the ecological degradation will be irreversable and earth will become sterile. Fresh water is scarse, agricultural soils are rapidly getting depleted of nutrients, the oceans are nearly depleted of fishing species and turning into a noxious miasma, the planet is getting covered with concrete, non-biodegradable garbage is piling up and humans are accumulating dangerours chemicals like heavy metals in their bodies turning them into walking cancers. If the fake capitalism system of delusional eternal growth is abandoned, humanity and societies will be fine, finer than with unsustainable population growth.
Tell that to the aging population that contributed to a pension fund when they were working and will have no money to support them since there will be no workers in future to feed into the pension fund. That’s one of the main issue with a slowing population. It’s a complex issue.
@@kathywamukoya4882 We don't need as much manual labour as we used to, nor intellectual either. We're in the age of robotics and AI. All it's needed is for business to be taxed properly replacing the social security funds that previously came from workers' contributions. Anyway, people without money doesn't consume, without consumerism there's no growth, not even capitalism. The system needs an update and adjustments.
This is actually a good thing, not a bad thing
Great documentary 👍.
lol work until 55 what a joke, ill have to work til 70 probably
can't even think about raising a family if you don't have a job
400 million don't have jobs
@@MoneyMan28400 million will likely not have kids.
@@evilds3261 but the poor people breeding the most
@@MoneyMan28Yes, but the poor people dying the most too.
Chinese people are very smart. Why should you bring someone into this miserable world of hardship if you yourself are barely making it? Chinese should continue to stop having children.
Trying to solve a systemic problem with linear thinking is as futile as bailing a leaking boat with a teaspoon. Even for a small country like Singapore, where systemic thinking and planning has been a way of life since independence, tackling this problem has been rather challenging and slow going. Given how much massive China is, despite their obvious learning from Singapore's experience, the challenge would definitely be amplified. But considering how quickly they have achieved their current success so far, we can be confident they will also solve this problem eventually.
don't think so. they're current success is massively overrated in my opinion. pretty easy to achieve massive growth rates when you have about 5 major powers before then as case studies on how to do it and the best demographic dividend in history (very few older people because of the famine, very few younger because of the one child policy). it is still absolutely mind boggling how quickly they managed to do it, but when you realise that it was really a matter of just copy and pasting with brilliant conditions, the correct conclusion to draw is that there success in that regard with have basically no bearing on the future. china is in a VERY unique situation and basically can't look to anyone for guidance now. it'll require ingenuity. not saying they can't do it, but the past can't be used as evidence in support of notion that they can
*their
Nah, it next to impossible to convince young chinese to have children. >Property price too high. >No job security >No social security. >cost to having children too high and competitive. They don't see a future for themselves, and you expect them to get married and have children? LOL.
@@JakeLOL1111 they also used stolen IP and market protections to achieve that. Now that they're more advanced they're starting to stall, just like everyone else. It happens to everyone. And mind you, what they want you to see are the urban centres, their most developed areas. It's like looking at San Francisco or NYC and thinking that's the standard. People in the countryside often still cook on fire in China....
@@ericphua2359 You think the rest of the world is any different. A modern worker is expected to change career three times in their life span. Technology is changing all the time. Except government jobs, all companies hire and lay off.
A shortage of overworked, underpaid workers. How awful!
400 million don't have jobs
I love my child too much to let him be born into this hell we call 'earth'.
What's wrong in it? Is in't this good for the environment ?
Simple. Like all developed countries do or will do. Less money to armies more to social care.
China needs to create/re-design industries where highly skilled workers can earn good wages. Simultaneously it needs to retrain a lot of these unemployed graduates to become skilled manufacturing workers.
a very informative video. I personally think that China’s primary problem is the closing of markets to it or the altering of developing nation status.
I think you do not have a clue. China's problem is, as it has always been, its population!
@@user-rj5kx8wr6y i have lived in China for 6 years. you live where???
China prepare to close the door and want to change the system of the world
@@stephanbateman5410 and I have lived in China for my whole life. I don't agree with you, you live where ? seriously, what I see from this video is merely a "hope" for China to do badly in the future. economical and political difficulties have been experienced in modern China, but these media keep talking about them like each one of them means the end of China.
@@1943stone Wenzhou
This could have been half the length. People want INFORMATION and analysis. Not long lingering shots of stock photos of skylines and crowds. I’m sure it’s really interesting but the editorial and production style is just too slow for me. I don’t want to wait 5 seconds between sentences, just to hear the same sentence paraphrased in a more dramatic fashion. Couldn’t finish it.
Uncomfortable truth is, African population boom is no answer to massive population decline elsewhere. It will be great for humanity if they prove me otherwise.
This makes no sense. One video making a declining population out to be a catastrophe of worker shortage. Next video will be one about how AI is going to take all the jobs. Sounds like a perfect world to me. I wish I could live long enough to free range cattle.
The viewpoints of Dan Wang from Hang Seng China are convincing and profound.
Good. Less people less wars.
This is litteraly a big lie. There are hundreds of milions chinese in the villages loving to find jobs in the cities to move to cities.
Village people not skilled. That is why they are still in the villages.
Another news channel said young people’s unemployment is at an all time high and this video said the population number is decreasing. There’s your solution to high unemployment.
Young person: Why will I try to produce more than I need if any surplus I may gain wont be enough to really advance myself but It will be spent on my elders (old family members and old goverment)? Now if there were improvement for the common/standar/average individual in been able to achieve affordable housing/health/education for ALL of us ; then It will be inspiring to work/labor towards something realistic and inclusive 😊 To much DEBT Is destructive 😢 Like that Sonora Cactus 🌵, lives in the desert but if it drinks to much water;the weight of that too much water itself will make it fall😓 Homo Sapiens sometimes make mistakes but from the mistakes we learn just need to pay the price of said mistake 😁 Blessings🙏
Everyone asked me when I’m gonna have kids.. I’m 32 and I can’t afford a mortgage for a house I can’t afford to get married and I can barely afford food and electricity despite me and my partner having good jobs.. how can I afford a kid?
I wished a lot of people thought like you. ❤❤❤
@@MaryJaneJones. but they do, and that's a problem. Not their fault, but it is.
You can afford , it's just that your spending is too high.
You and your partner have good jobs and you still can't afford to have kids? This is just an excuse. You are just spending too much money and don't want to make a sacrifice. Parents have to make sacrifices for their kids, even dogs do that.
@aditya I bet they have the latest iphones.
Aren't you being a little quixotic with China's population being the largest in the world---running out of workers?? 1.4 billion people?? Maybe some better planning rather than bad choices. For example, the birds were eating the grain so they killed of the birds---then, a locust infestation ate the grain (no birds to eat them), and the people still starved. Maybe build some underground greenhouses with fiberoptic lighting in the uninhabitable areas of China. Even underground housing could be an option. Housing doesn't seem to be the problem with huge ghost housing towns dotting the map. Or, put more money into food production (as mentioned above) than nuclear warheads????
Uh, China wants cheap labour. Governments fear workers costing more money to hire.
Now if only India's population would shrink also we may all benefit.
That's why China was investing billions of dollars in automation, artificial intelligence, and robotics. Productivity and efficiency can be increased with technology. Don't believe me? Look at what one person can do with ChatGPT. A automated manufacturing plant requires less workers, and provide greater production capacity.
China's problem is not lack of labor, but lack of labor who want to work in the manufacturing sector. While robots and automation can help reduce the labor requirements in factories, it cannot solve the potetial massive unemployment issue. Extending the retirement age will only further reduce job opportunities for the younger people. China needs to find a way to quickly add more white collar jobs. With many foreign corporations leaving China, this is becoming a huge challenge.
@@MyMovie5858 China will just have to grow its own consumer economy. Chinese industry needs to create products the Chinese people want, and restructure the economy from a export oriented economy to a consumer based one. Most countries go through industrialization, and they move to capital investments in machines to automate industry as much as possible. Then, they move to a consumer economy. When you move to a consumer economy, you need more white collar jobs. I saw what ChatGPT could do, and it really worries me. A lot of these white collar jobs can be replaced with something like ChatGPT and its derivatives in the future. AI could really make a lot of white collared jobs redundant in the future in every part of the world. We will see a labor crisis in the world in the next 5 years. They will still need people to work in white collared employment, but they will need a lot less people in the future.
It's a demand issue not supply. You can bring in as many chat gpt you want but machines will not consumer cars houses clothes etc.
@@ahmedzakikhan7639 ChatGPT like programs will displace white collared workers. The blue collared workers were largely replaced by programmable microcontrollers tied to industrial machinery back in the 1980s to the 2000s. In a modern factory, you don't need a lot of people. For example, a beer brewery, everything from brewing the beer to canning/bottling to packaging the beer is a totally automated process. Same with a cannery, it's also mostly automated needing VERY FEW people. The same can be said about automobiles. Automotive production uses robotic arms and some people, a modern manufacturing plant doesn't employ as many people as it did compared to the 1960s or 1970s.
@@Ace1000ks19751982 What do you think of finance professionals - they are saying chatgpt cannot replace them.
Not to worry as there are plenty of African and Filipinos wanting to come to China.And of course, there are millions of Chinese living in Africa.
not really. It will be a blessing for China to have less population as there will be less jobs in the age of AI and robots. The one I can see a disaster is India. Poor and big number of people to feed
You think China would make citizens out of 150M young Africans?
No African want to go to china
20:24 So...if the youth are saying the work is alot and the pay is low his solution is to exploit his own people?
Then the industry see more people have money now and decided to increase price. The reason people accept in the first place for low pay is because it was huge for them or decent enough yo live better with the pay.
Raising retirement age should only be done in phases. Not when u are 59, suddenly policy changed to 62 and immediately affect you. It should at least give people 5 years ahead of the change. Like announcing now the new retirement age while anyone with less than 5 years within the old policy will not be affected.
desperate situation needs desperate measure. china is in huge jeopardy if it was done in "normal speed", they gonna done in 5 years.
Student apathy is here in the u.s. also and some kids won't even put their names on paper much less do any work on the page. I think it's because of the pandemic, not country specific.
depression is different than the spirit of hopelessness that prevails entire populations and generations.
When you grow up as an only child it can be a very lonely existence. As an adult you may not want to have children because childhood is remembered as an unhappy experience
As an only child, I agree with you
@@zoesolanki961really?..
@@nofilter.906 Yes, but I went against it and decided to definitely have more than 1 child, because my childhood was lonely. It didn't help that both my parents were only children, so our family was very small.
@@zoesolanki961 this is going to sound crazy.....but your words made me say yes to having another child,.....my wife and i have been on the fence about having a second child,but we were leaning more to NOT having more....and in the back of my head i always thought that my boy will be without a brother or sister in his life,is it wrong to deny him this goodness of having a sibling.... I had a brother and sisters,so does my wife.....but we still focused on if were both working,WHO IS GOING TO TAKE CARE OF THEM TILL THERE SCHOOL AGE,,,I believe my thoughts were selfish......I think I'll ask my wife if she wants another baby... .........thank you.
@@nofilter.906 wow, that's amazing. I would have loved a sibling, I found being an only child emotionally very hard to be honest with you. Wishing you both all the best 💫
As a chinese WHO live in the mainland，Let me tell you why young people don't want to have kid. The reason is very simple that is because，The environment of the whole society is disastrous for having a kid. Public transportation especially the safety of public spaces is as bad as you can think. For example you can never dream of scenarios of children getting off school and heading back to home by themselves. Even if you have only one child you have to send him to school and pick him up from school. From this point of view，that takes up so much time of adults or even their parents which are grand fathers and grand mothers. Another example is highly expensive medical care costs and housing prices. And there are so much more people need to worry about like education cost, food safety, etc. You can never imagine how harsh the one child policy was forty years ago. With the development of society and people awareness of life quality, no tricky words can get them to have more children. So how ironic in this days it is those rich guys start worrying about fewer people, fewer children.
I'm glad my family raised. I would want kids in this day and age. I had 5. To much crime, getting to expensive, it would be to hard nowadays. Every country is getting worse. Governments are the problem. I wish we could go back around 40 years
The problems are business and political leaders who do not want to invest and automate jobs and create flexibility in companies are the problem . Populations have to reduce for the world to be sustainable , current consumption cannot continue
I worry about China's food independence. The bizarre news stories about rural enforcement troops destroying crops and home gardens, as well as inhibiting farm equipment traveling and harvesting crops like wheat, forcing farmers to face rotting or mouldering crops that can't be used.
What we usually see from the outside looking in, is that the cities are ridiculously overcrowded, living is expensive, there’s too much pollution, health and employment are uncertain, and apartments are tiny. If that’s accurate, of course people will have fewer children. It seems China will have to change many things to make it better for people to have more children.
Well thank God. We are at 8 BILLION plus. Not sustainable world wide
this one is good
Yeah but China still has over 1.4 billion people, which is way too much for one country to realistically alleviate poverty. I think China seriously needs a population drop and outsource their manufacturing to poorer countries or use automation. China's economy and technological development has matured considerably in the past 40 years, so it's time to move on and raise the GDP per capita instead of focusing purely on GDP growth. When I was in China two years ago I noticed more and more robots used in restaurants and hotels. The increased construction of "dark factories" (from the fact they don't need to turn on the lights because the production is completely automated) means you can still manufacture goods without the labour cost while reducing energy consumption. Form what I observed, Chinese society (and the government) adopts AI and robotics with little resistance.
It doesn't matter the size of your population the best case scenario you can hope for is to achieve a 'bell curve', - 50% are the middle class, 25% very poor, 25% rich. Such things can be seen everywhere in nature, for example technically any crab can win a female, but lots of them simply don't want to fight hard enough, they will be brushed off by the evolution as not fitted to the environment. Same with humans, just more complexity.
CCP is directly penalizing overall fertility (opposite of subsidizing) via the hukou system limiting access to quality care, schooling etc for migrant workers. The result is that 70% of Chinese children are growing up in their hukou-associated rural villages, with 1/3 having untreated short-sightedness, anemia, and intestinal worms and more failing to follow normal develop infancy development (per Scott-Rozelle et al). It is a mill stone around Chinas prospect for evading a the middle income trap. Yet the CCP will not reform the system because it is a core aspect of social control and wealth transfer(/theft) from the rural areas to cities and ultimatively to the upper CCP-associated elite.
The Hukou also completely fucks the fairness of the pension system. There is something like ten years life expectancy difference between poor, rural China where the majority have their Hukou and the rich city Hokou holders. Raising pension age might raise it over the life expentancy of farmers and many migrant workers.
Let the population drop cliff like.