"The announcement by the ruling Communist Party represents an acknowledgment that its limits on reproduction, the world’s toughest, have jeopardized the country’s future. The labor pool is shrinking and the population is graying, threatening the industrial strategy that China has used for decades to emerge from poverty to become an economic powerhouse. But it is far from clear that relaxing the policy further will pay off. People in China have responded coolly to the party’s earlier move, in 2016, to allow couples to have two children.... China’s family planning restrictions date to 1980, when the party first imposed a 'one-child' policy to slow population growth and bolster the economic boom that was then just beginning. Officials often employed brutal tactics as they forced women to get abortions or be sterilized, and the policy soon became a source of public discontent. In 2013, as Chinese officials began to understand the implications of the country’s aging population, the government allowed parents who were from one-child families to have two children themselves. Two years later, the limit was raised to two children for everyone."
And now it's 3 — but only 3 and only for married couples.
Posts
2 comments:
Owen writes:
"I cannot imagine a better demonstration of Hayek’s “fatal conceit.” The CCP geniuses had this all worked out. Not only could they outwit Nature and manage demographics many decades into the future; they could anticipate how human beings would respond —quickly and “correctly”— to this centralized manipulation of the mystery of life, first by not reproducing and then by reproducing more; and then, very quickly, yet more. Just like turning a tap on and off!
"Given the CCP’s penchant for secrecy, we will probably not learn nearly as much about this slow-motion catastrophe as we might like. But we can (and IMHO must) observe as best we can. I doubt there’s ever been another “natural experiment” of this duration, magnitude and impact."
K writes:
"The thinking of Stuart Gietel-Basten, who is quoted in the NYT article, is an example of the new kind of eugenics known as biodemography. This field studies the economic and demographic consequences of low fertility and an aging population. As a result of contraception and abortion this situation in which a "population bomb" implodes is the demographic regime of the actual present in China and of the future of everyone alive today. The welfare state cannot survive under this demographic regime. Yet most people are still talking as if the demographic regime of the age of the exploding "population bomb", i.e., high fertility and a youthful population, was the situation for which to plan. Since so few are studying the actual situation, the social policy prescriptions will come disproportionately from those following this form of eugenics. This is a reason for concern. Those opposing eugenics should make a similar effort to study."
Post a Comment