Why China's population is shrinking
And why that’s a big deal.
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For the first time in six decades, China’s population is shrinking, and it’s predicted it could create a demographic crisis. That’s because China isn’t just shrinking, it’s also aging. And the majority of Chinese couples are not considering having more than one child. Because of this, China is predicted to lose nearly 50 percent of its population by 2100.
China’s population decline can be traced back to the restrictive family-planning policies launched in the 1970s and an impressive economic boom fueled by China’s huge labor force.
China’s modernization brought rapid urbanization, rising income levels, and better education to large parts of China. Combined, these policies and growth have given China one of the lowest birth rates in the world.
Today, China is trying to reverse its population decline. Not just because an aging population is hard to sustain economically, but because China’s impressive economic growth, until now, has relied on its people. As China’s population challenges deepen over time, it might have to rethink how to grow its economy and care for its citizens.
You can explore China’s birth and death rate data via the United Nations Population portal, here:
population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/...
population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/...
As well as the country’s total population and predictions here:
population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/...
Here are some key facts about China’s declining population from Pew Research:
www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank...
You can read some surprising details about China’s family planning policies - for example, the One-Child Policy was actually less impactful than the Later, Longer, Fewer campaign - here: scholar.harvard.edu/files/mar...
Here’s an overview of China’s economic development from the World Bank:
www.worldbank.org/en/country/...
And a report on China’s income gap:
www.aeaweb.org/research/chart...
For an in-depth look at the cruelty and human cost of China’s One-Child policy, I recommend the documentary One Child Nation by Nanfu Wang:
www.pbs.org/independentlens/d...
You can explore population pyramids from across the world on the US Census Bureau’s website:
www.census.gov/data-tools/dem...
Finally, our expert, Professor Wang Feng, believes China’s population growth can be framed in a positive light. To understand how, read this piece he wrote for the New York Times:
www.sltrib.com/opinion/commen...
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They didn't even touch upon the fact that the "One-Child Policy" led to a scarcity of females, because every family wanted a little boy that would support them in their decrepitude. That puts a *lot* of pressure on a small number of women.
A country full of disenfranchised men- what could go wrong?
I was also thinking this, pretty glaring oversight
@@davissae Russia has femlae surplus, so the solution is obvious
I wonder if women there are constantly nagging about "I am single because there is no good man available, all the good ones are already taken" 😒
@@phoque121 no, coupled with the 4-2-1 issue and general Chinese culture, it’s the men complaining. There’s a big-money industry over there for trying to hook up bachelors with a woman.
It very funny to me, as someone who grew up in the 2000s and 2010s, how I kept hearing about overpopulation and how that was the world's biggest problem. But today, shrinking populations is all I hear about.
Overpopulation IS by far the world's biggest problem. There are several nations that have taken China and India's place, you just have to read more.
We have not remotely reached carrying capacity. Nature will let us know if we do just like any other species. Right now, we throw away food to keep prices profitable 😃😪
Overpopulation isn't a real fear, however housing might be a problem in densely populated cities.
@@aeon_zero Umm what nation?
After learning about all of this in the last couple of years, it’s been amusing to hear certain people still harping on about how “how there’s just too many people” and knowing that they actually have no idea what they’re talking about. Gotta love that Dunning-Kruger effect
“If having children doesn’t make my life better, what is the point having it?” If the government can’t answer this pressing question, I think it would be better off for youth to have no children.
Yes that's better
Exactly, why should we bring new people here to bear the burden of our failing economy and climate change? Let's focus on making life better for already existing life.
Individual people should be able to answer this question. Chinese leaders looked at the reality of unchecked growth; they saw starvation and rebellion. By reducing the population to, say, half a billion, individuals have more resources (on average) than 1.5 billion people. When the next bad harvest cycle comes (as it randomly does), China will be better able to feed its reduced population. That being said, dang! They yanked the reigns hard and kept the policy in place with an iron fist! Such a policy wouldn't work if people's voices mattered.
You can have 1 kid without popping out 10
你生孩子是为了改变自己的生活么？
Made even worse by the fact that most families pursued a son over a daughter, leading to large disparities in populations of males vs females.
那是祖辈的想法
Bro,you are back in to 1960s
@@ContCosypriot-eb2kiNot really it’s true now , my aunt, who is 47 now and had 2 children before,but is now forced by her husband to carry twin boys because he wanted boys. She has been pregnant for 5 months now.
I like how the government saw population policy like a switch which can turn on and off any moment
Average day for a Stellaris player.
Typical CCP mindset really.
STEM minded folks like the ones dominating the Chinese government often overlook or dismiss considerations that actually matter to people. Hence why in most other societies they're often infamously uninspiring as managers and rarely do well in politics.
as a chinese citizen, I can tell u that many of our policy can be turn on and off within a day, not just the population related one. (I think a lot of westerner heard about the mess that is our covid quarantine policy by now?) So yeah our gov are totally playing Stellaris everydays.
As governments should to prevent over or under population. You must be new to Earth.
As a Chinese myself, my answer is that the generations under the one-child policy, like me, are very self-centered, we no longer take having children as the task we have to do for our family, we think twice before deciding to have children. We explore our own lives more before we decide to bring more lives to this planet.
I find the opposite to be true actually 😂 a lot of parents manage their own family lives very poorly (and by extension treat their children poorly). I mean look at the amount of pressure they put on their children to succeed and fail to teach them worthwhile life skills, or failure to properly handle domestic conflict/abuse situations (a lot of my friends don’t remember their parents loving each other at all, just a lot of bickering or the other extreme case zero communication). I mean how do they see any good in starting families when you grow up in an environment where all this misanthropic behaviour is deemed normal 😅
pardon me for asking, but did you happen to have a sibling that got taken away because of the one-child policy?
@@fanofrpgalore1546 But in some cases, they also wish to have their own family and children to cure their bad experiences
@@alraylazado3366 No, because my parents are all college graduates, they don't want this either, and another reason is that their wish to have more children is defeated by the awareness of the consequence of violating this policy, but in the rural area what you said is very common.
@@ZenLeadstoDragonGate it's sad that the one-child policy was withdrawn a little too late. but if it meant one baby not being aborted, then it's better to be late than never. hopefully your gov't can come up with a plan to mitigate the effects of your shrinking population. the Philippines isn't actually far behind since we've just hit below the replacement level.
Declining population is bad for the economy but good for the environment
Hello Po idol
Bad economy create more poor people poor people dont care about environment cuz they just try to eat
I'm sure the economy will learn to adjust
The economy doesn't care about the numbers of population!
@@giggityking6505 that is impossible
This channel mastered narrating stories in a way that makes you feel you uncover the mystery yourself .... Thank you Johnny!
The living pressure are too high in China. Low salary, high house price, high goods prices, low social security and welfares; so people don't want to give birth any-more. Also, educational level has been raised in comparative to years ago. Higher educational people are more concerned with offspring's quality over quantity.
they say it in everywhere, i don't think it is about salary. because salary was more way lower in the past.
@@elpaso4765 it's complicated
@@elpaso4765 Before 1980s, the major economy comes from agriculture. More children means more labours. It costs very low in education. But now, the major economy is manufacture. It needs higher education. It costs much more than agricultural society.
oh, and the same in terrorussia!
@@elpaso4765 It's the picture as a whole. Salary was lower but cost of living was even lower in real terms, and welfare more generous
I'm 23-year old living in China. I asked some of my friends of the same age, almost no one plans to have children in the future. With a very tiring own life, who has the extra energy to take care of children？
How about you? Do you plan for kids of your own?
No. Time, money, and life style change after marriage, definitely Dont wanna kids, but may be change my mind in the future.
The more important question, how do you have access to the internet that access youtube?
@@ahmadhalabiah3714 he's him
@@ahmadhalabiah3714 VPN
As a Chinese born in 1990, I was the first generation who born under the "one child policy". Back then most people like my parents worked at government owned company, so no one would break the policy because it could make them lose their job. All my friends are single child, and I was thought how it should be😂 I still remembered 6 years ago the government opened up 2 child if both parents are single child. But in no time, today, they told you to have as many child as you want LOL
@@LONG_LIVE_RIGHT_WING The one child policy wasn't good. It would be better to try other solutions. Maybe free sterilization, free abortions, education on how to prevent pregnancies, free or cheap birth control, and education on when it is a good time to have children. I realize that those things are expensive though.
@PRÕÜD F@SÇĪST 卐 Toca Golpe de estado🥸👍🧨
The first generation of "one child policy" started in late 1970s. I am also Chinese born in 1990. We are the middle generation of this policy.
@@wjleaf2802 i think they meant the first generation of their family to be born under it i would assume
If only they just allowed immigration instead of being so nationalistic and closed off. Hardest country on earth to enter besides N Korea. Lol
Do you have a team of editors that do these videos? They’re total eye candy and always so well put together
As a Chinese living in America, I asked some of my Chinese friends living in both China and abroad about their views on the population issue. Most of them don’t even care and a few of them even feel relieved because they’re tired of overcrowded cities in China 😂
It's very much an issue that differs in perspective depending if you look at it from an individual vs government/economy level. That's why current policies have been ineffective....
its very much a nationalistic issue like many others and not an individual one if you are alive today it will really only affect people significantly at least 50 years from now
Let's see what they think in a few years as the population ages.
There are countless bad things in China.
@@wihenao 🇺🇸 is fasts ageing society
It would be interesting to see the relationship between population pyramids and immigration policies and economic longevity.
Would love to see it in case of canada which had almost all its population growth due to immigration the previous year
The CCP has cooperated with Myanmar and Cambodia, including Dubai, United Arab Emirates, to build large-scale factories and high-rise buildings, which are used to detain and traffic people and organs. Ask America to save us, I am Chinese, I hope more people know this information! I hope the United Nations will 😢intervene in the investigation
Yep, Canada’s worker shortage plus low birth rate means bipartisan support for immigration. Merkel knew it too but it made her very unpopular.
The thing about this is that it's very hard to compare countries immigration policies. If you bring in 10 million uneducated older people to a country of 1 million, there will be very bad effects. Bring 2 million highly educated young people from China to say Japan and you'll see a lot of benefits. It matters a lot on which scale the immigration is taking place, who is coming(young vs old, educated vs non-educated, cultural similarities etc) and how the country handles immigrations. For example immigration to Sweden is expected to double the cost of pensions instead of, as the politicans used to promise, save our pension system.
Germany has the lowest birth rate in the world except Monaco (most who move there are beyond child bearing age) and they need 500 000 immigrants per year to maintain the size of their economy. They get twice as many making Germany the second most popular destination only fractionally behind the USA. Half of immigrants to Germany are refugees.
I live in America, and I remember growing up being told that there's too many people in the world, so I decided I wouldn't have any children. I wonder how many other people thought the same thing and came to the same conclusion...
No one actually says that except extremists and people who misunderstand the population issue. So, not sure what circles you get that impression from.
@@bui3415 as a kid, people just say things to you even if they're not true. And you're like "they're confident, probably right." So if somebody looks at the population and says it's too many people, too many mouths to feed, etc etc all the things radical adults might say in earshot, you believe they're probably right.
I'm pretty sure it mostly has to do with our bleak futures. Who can afford having kids?
Me too , but i have 6 kids
@@thoopsy as someone who grew up in the timespan between the periods of being told the world is overpopulated to being told its underpopulated, i can say that most people of this age are too confused to think about having children as they have been told both that its a good thing and a bad thing
my heart always broke for the children that grew up not only with no siblings, but no cousins either. No cousins, no aunts or uncles. Just you, your parents, your grandparents. It seems simple enough when you are an adult, but a child should have relatives their own age too. Sure you can have friends. But no cousins? no aunts or uncles, bc the one child policy also affected your own parents generation? man, to me that is still such a sad thing.
That is not even the case
they can have cousins though
@@turtleshell8835 no if their mothers and fathers does not have siblings it is not
No way I would like that
事实上，人们有很多迂回的办法来解决这个超生问题，例如把孩子户口迁到其他亲戚名义上来隐瞒，或者利用关系走后门做虚假户口，或者就交罚款等等办法多的是，在我同龄人中就没有谁是独生子女的😂
Also in china and many asian countries you don't marry your spouse, you marry their family. It's just way too burdensome especially when you're already struggling in life
Women are basically slaves to the family she gets married to in Asian countries.
There were some benefits of such social arrangements, joint families were more better way of socialising children. Assured safety net. But I guess that’s changing now
you have to provide for all that people and your furure children.🥶
It is same here in India. I think it happens all over Asia..
The idea of 2 families uniting through 2 people has multiple benefits. As the children grow up in joint families, there are multiple members to care for the young and old, thereby negating the need for expensive toddler-care and elder-care services. looking after the domestic aspects of cooking, cleaning, washing for the joint-family are done by multiple wives, cousins and the mother, which reduces the burden on any one woman at any given time. similarly, farming and/or business duties for the joint-family is handled by the brothers, cousins, nephews etc, reducing the load on any one man. it also makes the family stronger against external threats (less important these days with legal and police services).
As a Chinese, I have to say most businesses in China are following a principle of "If you don't do something, someone else will do it", because there are too many people, and that is why most Chinese people are living under pressure from many aspects
Can understand as an Indian.
I really want that population in India starts decreasing we want many policies to decrease it . i'm fed up of this population to get a good college i need to compete against 2 Million students where colleges have only 30000 seats
@@jgbhacdsbjgfahsgdghdvbsf I think with time India too will face the same problem. More population led to more competition, inflation, people studying till mid 20s and working harder than their parents to reach decent financial stability where they can start thinking of having babies. And it’s hard to find couple willing to have more than one child because of high cost of living. In short, longer education, late marrying age, less children and the cycle repeats. Our population too will shrink, maybe not as drastically as china’s but it will.
*too many people with innovative ideas. Chinese people reproduce, but don't innovate. Now that western companies are leaving China, this puts the country under a heavy burden to stay afloat technologically.
@@jgbhacdsbjgfahsgdghdvbsf sounds like a problem of scaling. You just lack infrastructure supporting the population. The issue is not the number of people, but the number of missing people keeping the high population educated, sanitized, fed and healthy
Well researched and good visualizations and graphs Thanks for making this video
As a generation Y in china, I think most of us can't afford to raise a single one child. We've been exhausted by living ourself.
It's the same reason why people are not having children in America and Europe. Most people who are at the age to have children are not being paid enough to cover the costs of doing a decent job of raising children. They are also overworked and exhausted and lack the time and energy needed to meet someone and have children. In America and China there are also weak protections for families such as insufficient maternity and paternity leave. Babies need a lot of attention and employers don't want employees to be distracted from working for the company's profits by things like children.
You're saying higher wages would solve this, allow one parent to work and the other parent to stay home... I wonder if having less people flooding the workforce would help? Hmmmm.......
@@user-ut9ln4vd5m No, it is completely affordable for people to work less hours, hire more people to make up for it, and pay more. The problem comes from all of the productivity gains of the last several decades only increasing the wealth of a few very rich people. Your ideas will lead to those same few rich takers continuing to take all of the wealth for themselves.
@@eitkoml a lot of companies that have done this. Increase the work force size, decrease the time spent working also benefit from the fact that their entire workforce is no longer working "full time" and therefore the company saves money not having to put into health insurance.
Another factor is how people's view on 'profits' from having children changed. In a more traditional agrarian society, every population tends to add more productivity and security to the family, with small expenses, and this is usually directly tied to the growth and survival of the house. Nowadays the standard expense of raising a child to a "socially acceptable" state is much, much higher than a unskilled farmer-like type person, you need proper 9-12 years education, good initiative and habit training, many health issues to be engaged, all of these could be completely negated in old society but they are mandatory now. Having more children without immense wealth really only increases the burden to the family, which is the key reason why people in more developed country just have lower desire to have child.
@@eitkoml thankfully 4 day work weeks have gotten a lot of traction this past year or two
One of the contributing aspect of China's population decline is the 996 work ethic, 12 hours work day (9AM-9PM) for 6 days, prevalent on many technology based companies. How does a person care for somebody else with that work schedule? Throwing money and maternity leave is like throwing salt into a rolling forest fire. It does nothing and add up to nothing. Here's hoping for the best for Chinese citizens.
In fact, few people work this hard, and the number of such people is extremely small, with salaries ranging from 30000 to 50000
国家要进步就要努力
@@frankfleming1103 I'm living in china rn for 11 years, let me tell you, the number of people working with this schedule is much more than you think. Also, their salaries tend to be really low, basically take off a zero for the numbers you listed
@@zz-ww6fv sb😅
@@chykiora9138 yes.i'm chinese,many chinese work 26-28 one month,12hours a day,like waitor,factory worker.
thx, very informative
Having children is financially stressful. Most of us are struggling, why do we want to struggle harder by having kids?
While "one child policy" has big problems, it's important to note that other developed asian country like japan and korea suffer the same problem without such policy, people simply don't want to give birth.
Or raise children
Or they do, but can not afford the cost. Caring for children is so expensive now. Even using free public schooling, the costs are very high. And if one of your children has medical needs that inflate those costs, then a second or third child becomes even less likely.
你说得对，确实不是这个原因
Yup. I’d love to have three kids but can’t even afford one.
@@Railstar1976 no my good friend there women in Africa raising six kids with a fraction of the money isn't even a factor. In fact it seems to have an inverse relationship the issue is decadence. Atheists and secularism kills birth rates that the problem. People need meaning to want to have kids, only the religious are having kids in the first world.
Bruh when you get home at 8 or 9 after work and knowing you need to get back to work at 8 or 9 in the morning next day, making a baby feels like too much work, needless to say raising a baby.
can't agree u more!
@@geocam2 Yeah, like you said: at the end of a chain, let it be one for real then. No big deal
This channel has all the important current affairs that i should search to learn for my exam.Its really useful!!
This is REALLY well explained
Fun Fact I have from the fun fact guy: Even if you subtract 1 billion people from China and India each they still would be the largest and second largest countries by population size.
The CCP has cooperated with Myanmar and Cambodia, including Dubai, United Arab Emirates, to build large-scale factories and high-rise buildings, which are used to detain and traffic people and organs. Ask America to save us, I am Chinese, I hope more people know this information! I hope the United Nations will intervene in the investigation
makes you wonder what it would have been like if britian balkanized india before leaving
Which is disturbing... shame on them.
@@blaze556922 You are in no position to shame them so get down from the high horse.
@@blaze556922 their land is very fertile so they can bear those populations, meanwhile middle eastern and African countries have very little arable land with no water, low literacy rates with no women rights still their population growth rate is unsustainable
A longer maternity rate actually means more discrimination when women are finding jobs. So in order to counter them, women would not want to give up their job, but choose not to marry and give birth. So the Chinese are very against the extended maternity leave. Instead people are asking for same leave period for both parents to relief the pressure on women in workforce while also have enough time to care for the baby. But currently, this was not implemented.
@@lirenxin5472 what for? You must not have a mother. Poor you.
@@lirenxin5472you probably one of the reasons why women choose to stay single
@@woshisb-jo7bw there's always love. What you're talking about?
@@woshisb-jo7bw ??? there's tons of lgbtq+ ppl in China? Maybe not so well-known because of more conservative ideologies in rural areas and amongst elder generations, but in urban areas it's pretty much accepted amongst all young people.
@@woshisb-jo7bw Then don't get married. People need to grow up. There is no love without financials. Previously a man can provide for a family. Now with the decreasing real wage of an average person in China, a woman in an average Chinese household need to care for the family, the children and work at the same time. What's the point in getting married in this state? If China is like Korea or Japan when the male's income can provide for the household, then I am sure there are plenty of housewives. But Chinese men usually cannot even do this because of the worsening economy. Better to work individually. And you are seriously short-sighted. I am also a Chinese, and I can assure you there is LGBT in China, except that you don't know it. And there is black people in China, but you don't know it as well.
Regardless of the social structural factors, a big contributor to this is the awakening of young couples, especially those better educated and living in cities, as to what it means to have children. Is it for them to live happily in a just society that cares for the welbeing of its citizens and where individuals can thrive as long as they work hard and wouldn't be judged simply by their social status, or for them to grow up under enormous pressure with soaring child-rising costs and face brutal competition in the job market due to lack of social credits related to power, while children of those in power could easily get what they want? Another case: During the COVID lockdown in Beijing, a community official was recorded talking about how to deal with a resident who was not obedient. They said that to make him obedient, they should go for his son, or his "软肋” （literally "soft rib", meaning the weak spot), exposing how having children could become a disadvantage for someone trying to rebel against repression. This actually speaks of another major reason for ordinary people not to have children: They can have more guts and be less hesitant in doing what they think is the right thing in reaction to power.
Yet another great video!
Good lord having to take care of all your parents and grandparents and then also have a career and also get married and have kids and raise them sounds near impossible
mainly because your only 1 person
When procreation is based solely on labor productivity to support inequity within social mobility, while restricting access to basic resources, that are available to everyone, you get these particular issues that are more than avoidable, unnecessary and inhumane
For god's sake I'm not trying to read a scientific paper Throwing expensive words to look wise and smart doesn't make your argument better, it just makes it unreadable Or maybe I'm replying to a bot and I'm the fool
@Zaydan Alfariz Yup...
I agree but that was one giant run on sentence. You are aware there are more punctuations than commas right?
The issue is that basic ressources are very scarces in China. They need to import a lot of food since a very small percentage of their lands is usable. At any moment China could go to another food crisis, so resolving the basic ressources issues, is harder then it look.
@@diogoandre756 Simplified: If people only have children based on their ability to work and support inequality by denying access to basic resources to some, it creates unnecessary and cruel problems that could have been avoided.
I'm from China, and I've chosen to be the last generation of my family, thanks to China's unaffordably high housing price, various unstable policies, nowadays difficulty to find a sustainable job, and above all, lack of freedom and justice-- all by the autocratic gov't.
后人自有后人福，没有后人我享福😆
You Denfinitely not a Chinese, just a simple betrayor
@@claudiawang6794 Yes - because a true Chinese would break their back and sacrifice their livelihood for the CCP. A *loyal* Chinese person would sacrificed their son to the CCP like how Abraham sacrificed his son to God. Just kidding. You’re nuts.
This all sounds pretty good for the average working person. When there's no longer a surplus of labor, we start being treated like people instead of replaceable objects
5:27 Please correct. It is not a projected population decrease of 800,000 people, it is a projected population decrease of 600,000,000 MILLION people. It is going from 1.4 billion people to 0.8 billion people.
Projections are like buttholes. Everybody has one and they all stink.
600 million*
they used US billion not UK billion, so technically they are correct
@@vis1😂
This "projection" is just so made up to give a starting point for this video. With lockdown ending, it may be more likely they have a baby boom, like after the famine, they cite. But this time without 6 kids. There seems to be an idea that if childhood mortality is high, then parents want a lot of kids to hedge their bets.
If reversing the one child policy in China didn't work, then banning abortion after 50 years in the US won't work. Government can't force people to raise children they can't afford or don't want as a result of economic and social pressures.
Just because China reversed the policy and more children are not being born does not make the reversal a failure. You now have to reverse the culture that you have developed over 35 years that "families only have one child" which will take many years to do.
They're getting economic benefits for that.
In the US it's not about population, it's about the right becoming radicalised and letting religion dictate law. I'd be more worried about losing 50 years of social progress and culture.
@@aeon_zero how was it religion? Science says life begins at conception.
@Malaka reviews because only religion sees it as a "valid life" in science a fetus is no more alive than a tree. Because life itself does not matter. What matters is conscious living. Being aware of one's own existence. A fetus cannot be aware of once own existence until a brain has developed. And even then it must be well enough developed.
So good, we have been waiting for this for decades.
As a senior human resource manager with 20 years of work experience, I must say that people have long recognized the possibility of a population crisis, but a country's policies have terrible inertia. When people really feel the crisis, many methods are meaningless.
The economic pressure isn't there yet. Growth rate will drop even more later as labor shortage make everything so much more expensive.
As the standard of living rises things become increasingly more expensive and it’s not cheap to raise a child. This is happening worldwide.
Previously all you had to worry about was that your children didnt starve, then kids had to be sent to school and couldnt help (at least as much) with supporting the family. Now you have to get tech and housing is much more expensive and it just spirals... People want their kids to be well educated but to do so you cant split your resources as thinly between several children. Everything is more expensive which makes it hard.
I would rather be childfree and retire by forty, spend the rest of my life watching Netflix and chilling out, than have a couple of kids and slog till sixty to pay their expenses - schooling, healthcare, higher education, rent, food, entertainment.
so who will pay your expenses as you get older. you know kids that would be taxpayers and help keep society running.
Good luck if you think any government is going to keep paying your monthly pensions with growing life expectancy. Do tell if you find one that is willing to pay you money for 25+ years for netflix.
@@claudiameier666fk the society I guess
There is a growing trend online in China, that young people say "We don't want our future generation also becoming cheap labor and breeding stock." Hence, why more than 50% of young people in China choose not to have multiple kids, let alone just one.
I'm Chinese and I think it's a good thing to have a smaller population because we have so much competition for education jobs right now Also we have more or less lost things through this COVID-19 pandemic so we want to focus more on the present than the future
that sounds like a problem not because of hgh population, but because of the low number of jobs, to solve it one must simply make more jobs
wuhan virus, not covid
I honestly feel some sort of Schadenfreude when I watch such reports. A couple previous generations (not everyone but many) enjoyed the advantages of economic boom and yet neglected and mistreated us when we were kids on family level, offered us such fantastic opportunities as free internships or ridiculously low paying entry level jobs, no access to housing, refused to vaccine after we offered solidarity losing a couple years of our youth during the pandemic, and eventually led the world to the brink of WWIII on global level. Now they are whining why young people don’t want to reproduce these days and wondering where their retirement support should come from. Not only in China, many countries worldwide. You know what? You made your bed, enjoy lying in it.
Most of our economic problems come from getting off the Gold standard, and inflating the currency. Houses don't actually cost more more than they did 50 years ago, it's your money that is worth less.
"Don't have kids unless you can afford it!!!!" Also "Why don't we have grandbabies yet?!??!!"
Thanks for such a balanced and insightful video. This is an interesting topic.
As a Chinese, I think 0.5 billion is the right amount of people for our country. That's a similar population density compared to the US. 1.4 billion is just over-crowding.
is this affect economy top?
People view this as a bad thing. This is actually a good thing, less people means less pollution and less economic stress.
Might be more economic stress with collapsing economies, recessions, less services and more taxation on remaining workers to make up the shortfall
bro still believes in the myth of good lower population
"GDP per capita, the best indicator we have for standard of living". That's just not true at all. Human Development Index (especially the inequality adjusted one) is a much better indicator for standard of living.
You are correct that hdi is better but gdp per capita is a component in HDI 😅
Looking at HDI; Ukraine, Iran, and Belarus, for a few examples, are ranked higher than China
HDI enlarged the impact of the lowest score. for China, that's education. there are many problems in China, from environemental issues to income inequality, but education is the worst one. i have to say, this is a illustration of having a large population without sufficient resources to improve the education level. otherwise, china should ranked at a higher level, but not dramastically far from where it is now
I think economic pressure is only viable for current state of industries, relying mostly on manual labor. By 2050 I doubt there will be as much necessity in human labor as it is right now. Not about GPT again, but I'm sure there's going to be a similar break-through of a multi-purpose tool, be it a robot, or new ways of producing goods.
Not to sound insensitive, isn't this a good thing and shouldn't populations overall just start decreasing. We are currently 8 billion and resources are being depleted rapidly.
Exactly
5:51 How is GDP per capita supposed to be the best indicator for standard of living? I can think of several better measures off the top of my head: 1. GDP per capita by PPP (purchasing power parity; the chart shown doesn't indicate it's by PPP) 2. HDI (human development index) 2. Per-capita income (median, not mean!) by PPP Why the heck would per-capita GDP without PPP adjustment be a good indicator?
Theres also huge migration of Chinese moving abroad. I noticed a phenomenal increase of Chinese people in UK and Australia over the last 5 years.
I used to live in NYC, Brooklyn and Manhattan are filled to the brim. The West Coast as well actually
The American embassy in China has huge lines of people wait for visas and large overworked staffs handling all the people leaving. Every time a major issue happens in China, Chinese search engines record everyone looking up visa requirements.
In the UK this is most likely HongKongers, since CCP didn't keep its end of the bargain the government has allowed a large wave of migration.
It’s better to not have the products than making people work like robots in such big factories without any humanness
Big and important countries have to do it
ya let go USA train workers
🤦
That's where you could also bring up the topic of actual robots working in factories. Especially in this case too, since China is no stranger to it. Well, we just have to wait and see how things will go
As if it's any better in the western countries
Can you do more of demographics videos on other countries and their implications as well?
I don’t see what’s wrong with a declining population. In 1980 the population of the world was half of what it is today. Resources for the world would be saved.
Too much stress in this world. People don’t feel like they can have a kid nowadays. It’s painful.
GDP is perhaps the worst way to measure standard of living.
the video said GDP per capita
Shrinking population isnt that bad of a thing. Automation has taken the jobs of people so we need less people to have the same output
is that even a problem?
It means the one child policy works. Congratulations 🎉
A recipe for a dying country
Well it has negative impact ,Most of their population is now aging and more men than women so in future population will decrease again and lot older and less workforce , An economic disaster is waiting
@@DaysPass We are overpopulating the earth, i's good that we are decreasing in population. The earth couldn't sustain too many people.
@@mzf11125 We aren't even close to overpopulation. There is enough food and water for everyone if some countries didn't hoard wealth and have huge amounts of wasted resources. Unless we truly united as a species and started working together we simply cannot try and control or properly benefit from shifts in population. Since it effects the specific country where it happens first and the world as a whole far second.
@@mzf11125 "We are overpopulating the earth" I remember when the earth was supposed to run out of oil and food in the 1970s......then it didn't. " The earth couldn't sustain too many people." The earth doesn't care how many people are on it or not. It's a planet.
You would think because of the shrinking of birth rate it is easier to find a job, but instead it has never being more competitive to find a job in China.
well thats because you will only see these effects in the future it doesnt happen this quickly
That is because the current working population is still very very huge. What we are talking about here is the birth rates, babies who are yet to receive education.
I think the explanation I read somewhere was that college gaduate numbers are at an all time high, while at the same time job growth has barely keep up with ths growing college educated workforce so this counteract this population shrinkage issue.
They had to find jobs for an additional 100 million+ adults over the last 20 years as there wasn't zero or negative population growth even under "one-child policy." The Fed in America is raising interest rates which may cost 2 million jobs, and some say won't stop inflation due to scarcity of goods from COVID and bird flu. I can't imagine America trying to create 100 million new jobs!
Because we don't have the relation with the employer in charge of the recruitment. And maybe the market shrinks with the population in rural China. Urban China is always as popular as we can imagine.
When i saw the title of the video, i was like GOOD!!
almost impossible to beat this across multiple countries. the old, rich, powerful control the system for themselves; straining the younger population who actually do the productive work. this won't change until fresh graduates get wealth/income/freedom as young people did in the 50s to 80s
It all revolves around Money. China isn't going to be the only country facing population decline. The whole world would.
Stress as well. Birth rates usually go down whenever there's a conflict. And it goes up, when it's over.
Not India, Africa and Middle East.
One thing for a population decline to happen slowly, like in Japan. Quite another to "crash", like it will in China, thanks to its radical policies. If you suddenly have 4 old and retired individuals being supported by the taxes of 1 young person, you're gonna have a crisis. Plus, China is way poorer than most industrialized countries. People in Japan or Germany can afford elder care in a way that most Chinese can't.
@@cometojesusbeforeitistoola395 Don't give examples of abnormal humans
@Felipe Vasconcelos the Earth is still not inhabited at 100%. We need more population.
That family structure is the scariest thing I’ve ever seen Imagine generations of kids growing up with No siblings and No cousins
when you force your population to work 80 hours a week, don't give them good wages, don't provide systems to help raise families...WHAT DO YOU THINK WILL HAPPEN?
As a Korean this is pretty relatively optimistic. We never had met the (painted) fertility rate expectations and the forecasts had been always wrong in a recent decade. Now we are dropping about 0.1 per every year(!) and might see 0.6x on 2023. Can't wait to see the apocalypse.
we can feel it
as a chinese ,same feel
@@arnoldtim3628Is this topic often discussed in china?
@@prasanth2601 everyday，everywhere
Korea can take North Korea and then the problems from both sides are solved to some extent. The only thing for people from both sides needs to consider the most is how to take down or get rid of Kim Jong Un.
3:32 that is actually pretty obvious since the fertility rate was 1 for every couple. It will go down by half for each generation... Which causes all those problems. This may be an specific example with huge implications... But all over the globe, the trend is to have fewer than 2 people. Which will lead to a decrease in population which isn't bad in itself (it might be even good to have fewer people spending resources and all). But, depending on the rate, having na upsidedown age pyramis can cause drastic problems on government and population
the effects of this will be felt trough the whole world, either economically or enviromentally
Unless businesses around the world change to other developing countries. Back in the 60s, at least in the West, there wasn't a big reliance on Chinese imports until Nixon met with the Chinese president at the time to open trade between the United States and China.
This is nonsense and dangerous as the problem is overpopulation taking resources and destroying the environment. It's like people making videos about the "danger" of global cooling, which will not happen again for thousands or tens of thousands of years due to greenhouse gas emissions of fossil fuels in the last 200 years.
or they'll find a new sweatshop
@@kennarajora6532 However, they will have fewer consumers and it will be a lot more difficult to make a profit.
A large population is a kind of resource but also a curse.😢 As a normal person,we have been suffering for along time from cruel competition.
I feel like you're always two weeks behind Polymatter.
If the population decreases, then hopefully, the laborers will finally be paid what they deserve.
Not hopefully. It will and has. Why the labor movement is gaining traction in the US and other countries
Yes, until the wealthy replace us through automation and robots.
It will. The black death gave more power to poor farmers and helped end feudalism and start the renaissance
This video is very informative. Nobody talked about this issue in-depth like Vox did. Thank you!
Honestly lots of people have talked about it in-depth. This video just narrows it down to a nice under 10 minute video. This doesn't even fully discuss the issues involved...
I was born under the one-child policy. And now I am at the age of starting a family under the three-child policy. I am always absurd by the fast-changing policy regarding how many kids we are allowed to have. I'd like to say no to the three-child policy, I have no money and energy to take care of three kids.
You are right. Your example proves the one-child policy is the best. If there were three-child policy at the time when you born. There will be three times more people with no money and energy to take care of kids. 1x0 is 0 and 3x0 is still 0. not help.
Hey vox, just a curiosity. From where do gather your data. I want to do such analysis for a project of mine.
national Bureau of Statistics of China
Correction: at 5:27, the preditiction for 2100 says -800,000, but the graph shows a decline of approximately -650,000,000, which is quite a bit larger. Maybe the text was originally supposed to say 800,000,000, which is approximately where the graph ends up at 2100?
Yes. It was meant to say China will have 800 million people by 2100 if trends continue.
The population graph and the prediction is off. All advanced economies has population declines and the ones in Europe are worse than China's. Also, it mentions that China's GDP per capita is way lower than the advanced economies but by GDP at purchasing power parity, it is higher than all countries so this video is obviously trying to omit data points that conflicts with their negative narrative.
@@rcbrascan found the Chinese bot.
@@rcbrascan You have no idea what you're talking about. Chinese fertility rate is amongst the lowest in the World. Only surpassed by Japan and Korea. Also, even using GDP per capita(PPP), Chinese is still very low compared to developed nations.
Actually, Shanghai University themselves believe it could be as low as 600m by 2100 and 800m by 2050. Plenty of Chinese academics think Chinese numbers are overestimated. By the 2030's China is looking at economic decline and by the 2040's it is a collapse like the world has never seen in human history. Manufacturing 30% of the economy and declining fast. Property 30% of the economy that no-one wants to invest in and there aren't enough people to live in the apartments. There is an oversupply already of 70 million apartments! Put the two together with the demographics and you have armageddon.
Why would anyone complain about the population of China or other huge countries shrinking? The world already has too many people using its resources and ruining the environment. Every populous country should be working towards this goal.
nope, the population cant save the economy now
I’m not chinese but still facing exactly this problem. My parents and parents in law are at their 60s-70s, my wife and I are single child. I want to have more kid but my income cannot affort it, especially after covid. Life quality keep strinking year by year. 10 years ago my wife and I, event my first child was able to travel once or twice a year, mostly by flying. However my second child was born before covid and she hadnt has her first fly yet until now. Her best trip was by train.
It relieves me to see that this generation is really considering whether or not THEY want kids, not if their parents want them to have kids. It’s not like countries like China are in danger by this dropping population, they already are overpopulated and that is a huge complaint from people living there. Every country needs less people, the world is overpopulated.
Idgaf
The issue is how to support the massive population imbalance between the young and the old... you at the very least need enough people working in old peoples homes to care for them as caregivers or nurses.
yeah thats good but the problem is that the workforce will decrease which will make the economy worse
A few countries are deserted from people
As a Vietnamese, I think my country has the same problem. In the past, we just gave birth. But now, when we have a baby, we need to make sure a lot of things like: House, Education, Health Care etc.
I hope Vietnam replace the CCP regime as the next economic powerhouse by weakening their use of soft power.
China has to make the transition towards a consumption based economy as its demographics do not lend itself to sustainably supporting a export driven manufacturing economy It’s likely that in the short term countries like India may see more labor intensive manufacturing jobs but not because India will continue to grow but because it’s rate of population decrease will not be as rapid as chinas so there is a time limit to manufacturing in India as well. In North America Border towns in northern Mexico and the southern United States will probably lead domestic manufacturing on the continent because of the respective population growth rates throughout that region and the regulatory advantage of being in the same economic zone. Mexico still has a lot of time to leverage a population based workforce dividend before its population will decrease. It is still developing and having children
Do you think robotization will help? What is by 2050 most factories are autonomous and they fill the role the lack of people leaves?
Shrinking population is definitely not a concern for today's young people in China. 10 million new college graduates pouring into the job market each year is no joke.
I also heard that the cities are now designed for the one child policy. It’s tricky to find a home if you have more than one kid for example.
true. the reousrces allocated to each home and the design of the apartments themselves are based on the assumption that there's only one child in a family; so if there's another one (second birth, not a twin), that child won't be getting a degree. the apartments are usually having 2-3 bedrooms only. the problem is, they knew the population will be shrinking, but they are still assuming there's going to be a large amount of new-born children, so many resources are vaccant
@@jerryz9042 2 bedrooms ainly, if there are 3 then there should not be much problem with 2 kids
并不困难，因为不是所有人都生活在北京上海，我所在的城市大约有100万人，房价比较便宜，销售的80%公寓是3居室的，4居室的也很常见，何况很多中国人并不是只有1套公寓
As someone who has ties back in China but also works in the US, I can tell you for sure....the work environment is so hostile to the points if i were to list some of the things they do to hire/fire an employee, it would be straight up illegal in the US or EU. Like they ask you whether you plan to have a child or not at the a job interview...and the long long work hours without overtime pay....you name it. Gosh im grateful.
I wish everyone could see this comment. Most Americans hate our country and think every country in the world is better
@@28FlyingDutchman Those who hate America will be given the honor and privilege of having a one-way trip to china where they can have a happy socialist life!
@@28FlyingDutchman Northern Europe is def better than the US and the US could improve itself in many ways but they're too stubborn to change and are still living under the delusion that they're the greatest country on Earth.
@@28FlyingDutchman funny you're here in vox bc this channel is very anti 🇺🇸
because the population momentum is still there. there's still a large number of workers waiting to be employed. when the population decreases for another decade or so, these companies will have to do something to improve the working environment, as they won't have anyone to hire no more. such problem exists in schools as well. only until not long ago, teachers would literally beat the "below-average" students, as there were too much students for one teacher to handle that teachers didn't want to bother. recently, as the number of new students declining, each student gets more attention and care
In fact, the population reduction plan was put forward around 1990. Newspapers in 20003 also predicted the population trend in 2023, which was very accurate. At that time, the population growth rate was too fast, and the contradiction between population and resources was very serious. Family planning was put forward at that time to solve this problem. Now Demographics of India's population growth rate will soon have to face China's problems around 2000
China: Dont want children have to focus on work and savings. Philippines: I have earned $300! Time to add one more child.
2.7 fertility rate Philippines
Why would this be a bad thing, has to happen in many other places in the world.
Because you end up with a much bigger percentage of the population being old and a small percentage of working age.
The same situation with Korea and Japan
But China does not rank as high in per capita GDP as South Korea and Japan.
Similar with nearly all urbanized countries, but China's population outlook is more similar to Europe during the Black Plague.
6:54
All over the developed world. The only difference is that Europeans just compensate their own extinction with immigration.
Having 4 grandparents is actually good for the only child. He will own properties and wealth accumulated by 6 people before him. He will not have to save money to buy his own house. He can invest and live off that money without having to think about working. Money is king.
What happened to the end of the video? The audio cuts off?
Fascinating that China still have more births than Europe (including Russia) and the USA combined, by a wide margin. They're having more than enough births still, in absolute numbers, to be an industrial and military superpower (a "hegemon" if you will) long into the future... The problem being that they had a truly incomprehensible amount of births before the 80s. And to take care of such a staggeringly immense, ageing cohort -- they would need to continue to have an equally staggering amount of children today. There's no painless exit from the situation, unless we can mass produce ~ human level AI workers in 50 years.
"GDP per capita, the best indicator we have for standard of living" HAHAHAHA
What’s wrong with that statement?
*one of* would be a better wording It represents the economic output of the country divided by the amount of people but doesn't represent how that wealth is spread around along with non-economic aspects like unpaid labor and free time
bezos and buffet of the world destroy that matrix
@@eujekas Human Development Index (especially the Inequality Adjusted Human Development Index) is a much better measure of standard of living.
@@eujekas I can imediatly think of one not perfect but clearly better: *GDP per Capita in Purchasing Power Parity.* Because 100$ in the US let's you buy a lot less stuff than 100$ in China, even when ajusted for currency, simply because things are cheaper there. PPP corrects that.
Pretty blazen to say "GDP per Capita is the Best indicator we have for Standard of Living", standard of living in terms of consumerism possibly, but in terms of quality of life it is far from the best indicator.
By effect of only child policy and urbanization work together, from my perpective it's hard to say any of protential circumstance could raise the motivation of giving birth for new couples by now, so it maybe the biggest reason which speed up changing China in few decades.
I'd like to know more about how the economic effects of a decreasing population could be mitigated, and what the positive aspects of a decreasing population could be too (e.g. more biodiversity, less crowds and pollution, less pressure on water resources, etc.)
Immigrant workers to provide elderly care. Japan doesn't want it.
Robotics, machines and AI.
Interesting how it was "deadly and lethal" when talking about covid, but now that we are talking about DEATH OF THOUSANDS because of governments/corporations agenda, we say "decreasing population" (positive aspects included). Eerie technocratic euphemism.
Invest heavily in robotics and AI is the only thing I can think of that might help mitigate the issue
@@sandal_thong8631 Japan wants to remain ethnically homogeneous.
China is experiencing this due to the one child policy, of course after the 2015, the policy ended and still those are about to kick the bucket yearly. Also, can already see the future's tendance, population will be plummeting in long term coz it depends heavily how the teens see the future but not heavily on the policy enacted.
also China is experiencing middle-income trap, expensive enough of being not competitive of those labor-intensive goods but not good enough in higher value-added activities because productivity is too low.
btw, i guess the gov doesnt even care shrinking of population, they just simply release the policies just by a random action. I mean, chinese is only doing what the western did before industrializaiton, but in a modern, more competitive way, China now needs to find her own way out such as innovative policy and product come out, which is a sink-or-swim electric car and semiconductor industry.
"You should receive more education. I won't deny the various challenges China faces, but compared to the semiconductor industry and the threats posed by the external environment, these are insignificant, so you're just saying some nonsense.".
The one child policy was important, but it's not the only factor. China industrialised very rapidly in the 90s and 2000s, and industrialisation comes with known demographic effects. There is this slightly annoying habit of people looking at individual countries and saying 'Look it's population is declining because of X!', when the bigger picture is that the demographic transition is happening _everywhere_ . Country-specific factors may accelerate or decrease the rate and magnitude of the transition, but they do not explain the bulk of it.
social anxiety is really bad in China. Young generations are less and less interested in getting married and raise kids because they don’t want that kind of pressure on themselves. Raise a child in China is extremely expensive because parents need to save for their future need including house and cars in marriage but they also need to take care of their own parents at the same time. The one child policy definitely has a huge impact on this because there would be a sibling that can share the responsibility of taking care of parents which would take away lots of the pressure. On the other hand, even the population is reducing, China still don’t have enough economy for everyone to have a decent job, Chinese society sees high standard education and diploma as the only way to find a life in the society. There are about ten million undergraduates college students graduating each year which making job hunting extremely difficult lots of young people have to settle for jobs that hardly covers their rents or jobs like delivery men for a while. Most of students will chose to applying for a masters degree so they can get a job. But the graduates study in China is really strict too, there are all kind of tests waiting for them and many people don’t even qualified for applications. And if you don’t own a house a car and a descent job, you can hardly getting married in China, it’s a rich people’s game now.
The recent graduates from college are the most unemployed in history. Bring on the population decline in my view.
How does this impact their housing industry and insurance system? As these 2 maybe be hidden support systems for the economy they are the two of the most important pillars of a modern economy.