The population, now around 1.4 billion, is likely to drop to around half a billion by 2100—and women are being blamed.

Chinese women have had it. Their response to Beijing’s demands for more children? No. 

Fed up with government harassment and wary of the sacrifices of child-rearing, many young women are putting themselves ahead of what Beijing and their families want. Their refusal has set off a crisis for the Communist Party, which desperately needs more babies to rejuvenate China’s aging population.

With the number of babies in free fall—fewer than 10 million were born in 2022, compared with around 16 million in 2012—China is headed toward a demographic collapse. China’s population, now around 1.4 billion, is likely to drop to just around half a billion by 2100, according to some projections. Women are taking the blame.

In October, Chinese Leader Xi Jinping urged the state-backed All-China Women’s Federation to “prevent and resolve risks in the women’s field,” according to an official account of the speech.

“It’s clear that he was not talking about risks faced by women but considering women as a major threat to social stability,” said Clyde Yicheng Wang, an assistant professor of politics at Washington and Lee University who studies Chinese government propaganda.

The State Council, China’s top government body, didn’t respond to questions about Beijing’s population policies.

  • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.worldEnglish
    9·
    11 months ago

    The Taiwan government is literally giving money to have kids. The more kids you have, the more monthly cash they give you.

    South Korea has a similar strategy, although I think it comes as housing benefit and paid time-off.

    The problem is that these economic incentives are relatively small. And they all come with the caveat that you have to… get married and take up a subservient role in child care and produce babies (the last bit in particular being extremely unpleasant and not something you can easily pay people to do).

    By contrast, private employment in the professional sector offers a significantly better deal. Get more money than the miserly state stipend. Keep your independence. Don’t tear your vagina in half producing a new baby. Enjoy your fucking life in an economy that is built to produce luxury consumerist experiences.

    If China wants more babies, it needs to start giving the people things that promote having kids.

    The article is paywalled, so its hard to say exactly what Chinese social policy isn’t doing. But the country worked very hard to curb its population towards sustainability and to improve the outlaying regions of the country that was shedding peasant farmers in droves. Compare the population distribution of China to neighboring Japan, where a full 12% of the population lives in the capital city. Tapei is nearly as bad.

    At some point, people are responding entirely to social pressures. I’m not going to try and have kids if I’m living in a closet on a peasant wage. Neither are folks in Europe or North America. We’re all in the same boat in this regard. Post-industrial countries are all seeing a population shortfall, in no small part because they’ve compressed populations into these tiny spaces and given them barely enough to live on.

    Add in the cultural shaming of “teen pregnancy” and what you’re left with is asking a bunch of career-professional thirty-somethings to get off the career elevator so they can fuck like horny adolescents.

    That’s not going to work anywhere you try it.

      • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.worldEnglish
        11·
        11 months ago

        China wants people to move from rural areas to cities

        Given their development patterns, it more appears that Chinese planners want the cities to move to rural areas. The article you’re citing is describing mass modernization in some of the most remote corners of the country. Northern Hebei abuts Inner Mongolia. Liaocheng is basically China’s Iowa.

        they forcibly move them

        Did you even read the article? They are redeveloping historically agricultural land into urban industrial centers, primarily for the purpose of increasing output in these agricultural territories. Farmers are moving from underdeveloped ranch homes to fully electrified and transit-connected tower blocks of their own accord. In fact, one of the bigger complaints in China is the political economy around folks jumping the queue in order to get into these new luxury units faster.

        “Urbanization is in China’s future, but China’s rural population lags behind in enjoying the benefits of economic development,” said Li Shuguang, professor at the China University of Political Science and Law. “The rural population deserves the same benefits and rights city folks enjoy.”

        This is a sentiment that’s sharply divided rural and urban communities in China for decades, and which has contributed to a gray market of labor moving from poorer rural neighborhoods to richer urban centers that the state is hoping to discourage.