East Asia faces population drop 10 years earlier than anticipated

East Asia faces population drop 10 years earlier than anticipated

China, South Korea and Taiwan follow Japan into low birthrate economic woes

asia.nikkei.com

East Asia faces population drop 10 years earlier than anticipated​

China, South Korea and Taiwan follow Japan into low birthrate economic woes

March 13, 2021 10:32 JST

TOKYO -- East Asia has entered an era of population decline. Japan was the first to show a clear trend of sustained falls, but now China, South Korea and Taiwan are too.

Last year, South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong all posted natural population declines -- meaning there were more deaths than births -- for the first time since comparable data became available. And the number of newborns seems to have declined significantly in mainland China as well.

The region could see a further drop in the number of newborns this year due to the pandemic.

Net population declines have begun 10 years earlier than widely anticipated, hampering long-term growth prospects.

South Korea recorded a natural population decline of 32,700 in 2020, while Taiwan posted a drop of 7,900 and Hong Kong a fall of 6,700.

The number of deaths in South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong remained roughly unchanged last year thanks to their stringent coronavirus measures, but the number of newborns fell sharply -- 10%, 7% and 18.5%, respectively.

China, which has an estimated population of 1.4 billion, is also edging closer to a natural population decline. According to the country's Ministry of Public Security, the number of newborns fell 15% in 2020 to 10.03 million, almost balanced out by the country's nearly 10 million deaths.

Yet, the figures could be deceiving. The ministry's data is based on registration, and there could be many unfiled births. China's National Bureau of Statistics is expected to release its newborn figure for 2020 as early as April, based on its once-a-decade population census, which was conducted last year.

Given how long pregnancies last, COVID-19 would have had a limited impact on the number of the region's newborns last year. The declining number of marriages had a bigger impact.

In China, South Korea and Taiwan, the number of marriages had been on a steady downtrend before the pandemic. The number of couples getting married in the three economies fell 10% to 30% between 2015 and 2019 due to soaring housing prices and other harsh economic realities that stifle younger generations. In each, the number of marriages fell about 10% last year, a sign that newborn numbers could drop further in 2021.

A falling birthrate seriously impacts a nation's economic performance. In the 1970s, Japan's total fertility rate -- the average number of children a woman will have in her lifetime -- was about 2, so there were enough newborns to keep the overall population afloat. But the rate started to drop markedly in the mid-1980s, when the country's gross domestic product topped $10,000 per capita. A decade later, the rate sank below 1.5.

South Korea's and Taiwan's per capita GDPs crossed $10,000 in the first half of the 1990s, and their fertility rates fell below 1.5 a decade later. China's per capita GDP exceeded $10,000 in 2019, and if the experience of its peers is any guide, its fertility rate will start falling soon.

The only difference between Japan's total fertility rate and those of its East Asian neighbors is the speed of decline. Japan started experiencing a fall in natural population in the 2000s, but its fertility rate has largely held above 1.3.

South Korea's fertility rate dipped to 0.98 in 2018 and to 0.84 in 2020, while Taiwan saw its rate fall to around 1. Some experts estimate that China's fertility rate has already dropped to 1.2 or 1.3. A rapid decline in population leads to a "demographic cliff," and those economies would face much steeper cliffs than the one confronting Japan, if the downtrend continues.

The next 10-plus years will be crucial for arresting the rapid birthrate declines.

Until 2000, the number of newborns in China, South Korea and Taiwan remained twice as high as current levels. If people aged 20 or older, who make up a large portion of these populations, have more babies, the population decline could stop. But since baby booms ended after 2000, these nations' birthrates have fallen sharply. In a decade or so, the pool of potential parents will have severely evaporated.

None of East Asia's economies expected their populations to start shrinking so soon. In late 2016, Statistics Korea projected that the country's population would start declining in 2032. In 2019, the United Nations forecast that South Korea's population would start shrinking in 2025 and Taiwan's in 2030.

As for China, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences expects the country's population to start falling in 2030, with the U.N. saying the decline will begin in 2032. But recent figures indicate the drop could begin much sooner.

...

 

[Macrobius]

Chris Hamilton at Econimica has been pounding away at this topic for a decade at least. Chinese TFR (total fertility rate) probably peaked in the late aughties financial crisis.

Econimica

econimica.blogspot.com

 

[Petr]

 

[Petr]

China’s Births Hit Historic Low, a Political Problem for Beijing

The demographic crisis, a challenge to the economy, also signals a limit to the reach of the government, which has struggled recently to grow the population.

www.nytimes.com

China’s Births Hit Historic Low, a Political Problem for Beijing​

The demographic crisis, a challenge to the economy, also signals a limit to the reach of the government, which has struggled recently to grow the population.

By Steven Lee Myers and Alexandra Stevenson

Jan. 17, 2022

China announced on Monday that its birthrate plummeted for a fifth straight year in 2021, moving the world’s most populous country closer to the potentially seismic moment when its population will begin to shrink, and hastening a demographic crisis that could undermine its economy and even its political stability.
...

“China is facing a demographic crisis that is beyond the imagination of the Chinese authorities and the international community,” said Yi Fuxian, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who has long argued that China’s Communist Party leaders were underreporting population figures.

The number of births fell to 10.6 million in 2021, compared with 12 million the year before, according to figures reported on Monday by the National Bureau of Statistics. That was fewer even than the number in 1961, when the Great Leap Forward, Mao Zedong’s economic policy, resulted in widespread famine and death.

For the first time since the Great Leap Forward, China’s population could soon begin to contract. The number of people who died in 2021 — 10.1 million — approached the number of those born, according to the figures announced on Monday. Some demographers say the peak may already have occurred.

“The year 2021 will go down in Chinese history as the year that China last saw population growth in its long history,” said Wang Feng, a professor of sociology at the University of California, Irvine, adding that the 2021 birthrate was lower than the most pessimistic estimates.
...

“I don’t really want to spend my savings on kids,” said Wang Mingkun, 28, who lives in Beijing and teaches Korean language. “I actually don’t hate kids,” she went on. “I actually like them, but I don’t want to raise any.”

Because the “one child” rule was a pillar of Communist Party policy for decades, questions about its consequences have become politically fraught. When a prominent economist wrote last week that the way to solve China’s declining birthrate was to print trillions of bank notes, he was promptly censored online.

Ren Zeping, the economist, wrote in a research paper he posted on social media that if Beijing set aside the equivalent of $313 billion to help pay for incentives such as cash rewards, tax breaks for couples and more government child-care facilities, it would fix the problem. “China will have 50 million more babies in 10 years,” he explained in a research paper he posted on his social media account.

When his suggestion provoked a fierce debate online, his social media account on Weibo was suspended for “violation of relevant laws.”

Xi Jinping, China’s leader, has proposed similar measures in the past, though not at that scale, choosing instead to move more incrementally to avoid highlighting the failures of previous policies.

More recently, Beijing has promised to revamp laws prohibiting discrimination against working mothers. It even banned private tutoring in an effort to tackle soaring education costs and rein in competitiveness among young parents — something that couples often cite as a reason for not wanting to have children.
...

The National Bureau of Statistics announced the demographic figures on Monday as part of its report on the country’s economic growth. While overall economic output for the year increased 8.1 percent in 2021, much of that growth came in the first half of the year.

Ning Jizhe, the bureau’s director, said a low birthrate had become commonplace in many countries, citing Japan and South Korea. In 2021, he noted, the number of women between 21 and 35 — that is, those born at the height of the “one child” era — had decreased by roughly 3 million.

While he said that the pandemic delayed marriage and births “to a certain extent,” he also noted the increased costs of raising children and other social factors.

He nevertheless expressed hope that China’s population would hold steady in the future, citing the government’s decision last year to allow families to have up to three children. “The effect of the ‘three child’ policy will gradually emerge,” he said.

He Yafu, an independent demographer in the southern city of Zhanjiang, disputed that.

“Basically, in a country with a large population like China, if the difference between the number of births and the number of deaths is only a few hundred thousand, it basically belongs in the range of zero growth,” he said in a telephone interview.

The trend, he warned, “cannot be reversed.”

 

[Petr]

From the Völkisch eugenicist perspective, the current state of the Chinese people is very far from ideal - it looks good only when compared to the miserable conditions of Western countries ("in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king"):

 

[Petr]

And here again you can see what kind of fertility sinks big cities are - in the highlands of Cambodia, the birthrates are still quite high, but in the capital Phnom Penh, the TFR fell below the replacement rate many years ago (and is undoubtedly still falling):

Demographics of Cambodia - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Total fertility rate per province in Cambodia in 2014

 

[Petr]

China says it plans to carry out a 'special campaign' to 'intervene' in abortions as its birth rate hits a record low

The campaign is slated to involve local efforts to "rebuild and instill the values and culture of raising multiple children in a family" as the country panics over birth rate.

news.yahoo.com

China says it plans to carry out a 'special campaign' to 'intervene' in abortions as its birth rate hits a record low​

Cheryl Teh

Fri, February 11, 2022, 7:17 AM·2 min read

After China's birth rate hit a record low last year, a state-backed family planning agency announced this week that it would be rolling out a "special campaign" to "intervene" in abortions.

According to the China Family Planning Association's work plan for 2022, it will be implementing its strategy this year to actively "intervene" in abortions for unmarried people.

This plan has been touted as a way to "improve and promote reproductive health." Per the association, the campaign will involve pilot projects to "promote positivity around marriage and childbirth." It will also "advocate for marriages in villages" with a slew of slogans and "grassroots outreach" to "guide the masses" in their family planning.

The campaign to reduce the number of abortions in China comes as the country hits a record low birth rate. According to the Chinese National Bureau of Statistics, China's birth rate dropped for the fifth year in a row in 2021, which could soon lead to a shrinking population.

The Chinese government announced a landmark policy shift in May to combat its flagging birth rate, changing its two-child policy and allowing couples to have as many as three kids. However, it is unclear if this policy shift will make a dent in China's declining birth rate, with Chinese youth resisting the idea of starting families, citing the high costs of bearing and raising kids and their fast-paced "9-9-6" lifestyle as reasons for not wanting to reproduce.

Abortion is legal in China, and the Chinese government has not made any official moves to restrict abortions by law. However, the state council issued guidelines on abortion in September last year, stating that to "improve women's reproductive rights," abortions for non-medical reasons should be reduced, mandating that women present medical reasons for having the procedure.

According to a report from the Chinese government's Population and Development Research Center, a branch of the country's national health commission, an average of nine million abortions were performed in the country every year from 2005 to 2017. However, the report noted that the number might be far closer to 13 million procedures per year, counting an additional four million abortions performed in private clinics and hospitals.

 

[Petr]

Thailand's plunging birth rate a ticking demographic time bomb - UCA News

The Buddhist-majority country posted a record low birth rate last year

www.ucanews.com

Thailand's plunging birth rate a ticking demographic time bomb​

The Buddhist-majority country posted a record low birth rate last year​

UCA News reporter, Bangkok

Published: February 07, 2022 10:06 AM GMT

Last year the Buddhist-majority country, a nation of 69 million citizens, registered a record low birth rate of just below 545,000 newborns, a figure lower than the number of deaths that year, which was 563,650, according to data by the National Statistical Office.

By comparison, until the mid-1990s, there were between 900,000 and 1 million births, but then the rate began to decline.

By now the birth rate in the country has declined to 1.2 child per woman, well below the replacement level of 2.1, from a one-time high of 5.1, experts say.

Although the country’s birth rate has been shrinking for years, the latest figures indicate that Thailand, which has one of the region’s most robust economies, is already facing chronic labor shortages and the social repercussions of an aging society.

Experts say that a reason for the increasingly low birth rates in Thailand has been relative prosperity and upward mobility, a trend that has caused many women to pursue their careers and delay having children.

Many young Thai women prefer not to have any children until they are in their 30s and even then, only one or two offspring.

“I’d love to have my own children, but it’s not easy to do that when you work all day long in an office and you have little time left for anything else,” Suwisa Anurak, 36, a manager working in communications in Bangkok, told UCA News.

“I think many women are in a similar situation. My older sister has a six-year-old daughter, but my younger sister [who is 31] is childless like me,” Suwisa added.

Within a decade, experts say, 28 percent of Thailand’s population will be 60 or older and as the country’s birth rate is already well below replacement level its population will continue to shrink in line with similar trends taking place in developed nations such as Italy and Japan.

Already a fifth of the Thai population is elderly, which means that Thailand can officially be classified as an aging society.

“We call [this trend] a population ‘tsunami.’ It is a powerful wave that will have tremendous impacts,” said Pramote Prasartkul, a professor of demographics at the Institute for Population and Social Research at Mahidol University in Bangkok.

“More than one million [people] who were born in 1963 are entering retirement age next year,” he added.

Back in 1963, when those 1 million babies were born, Thailand’s population was just 30 million, or less than half of what it is currently.

Ironically, it was government-sponsored family planning plans during that period of high birth rates that began to lead to fewer and fewer births over time.

By 2020, the number of newborns was below 600,000 for the first time and the following year it fell to 580,000. Last year, probably because of the economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, it reached a record low of 544,570.

"Nurseries, schools and universities will be affected and there will be a shrinkage of the labor force, [especially] in the farming and industrial sectors,” Prof. Pramote said.

Already as many as 5 million migrant workers, primarily from Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos, are employed in Thailand to make up for domestic labor shortages.

“Investments in public infrastructure projects designed to cater to large numbers will become a waste,” Pramote added. “More importantly, we’re losing human resources.”

 

[Macrobius]

Meanwhile in the US... Blacks are coming to terms with the idea that having TFR less than replacement doesn't result in a percentage increase, in the face of immigration and higher TFR elsewhere.

Actually, there is no evidence on this thread at all that they understand Planned Parenthood and abortions (except for a few in the 'Welfare Queen' industry who want a large body count) are 'on plan' for achieving their goals and a net negative for the Black race.

They had a better chance of long term survival under chattel slavery. Freedom isn't free.

Are Black People Really Just 13% of the Population?

Having been hovering around the 9-13% percentage range since the Great Depression....over 90 years ago! The black populations have always had a positive fertility rate in this time frame, so I can't comprehend why the census figures haven't grown that much. I believe that the numbers are...

www.lipstickalley.com

 

[Petr]

 

[Petr]

Is China running out of people? | MercatorNet

China is a rapidly aging society. The “official” fertility rate is 1.3. But demographer Dr Yi Fuxian places China’s fertility at 0.9.

mercatornet.com

Is China running out of people?​

The Middle Kingdom’s demographic diminution

by Louis T. March

Jun 26, 2022

One of history’s interesting anomalies is the transition of China from hard-core Communist (no private sector) to ultra-nationalist state-capitalism-on-steroids. Ideology aside, the all-powerful state endures.

Look no further than the draconian one-child policy of institutionalised domestic abuse and forced abortion. The government now realises that was a huge mistake.

China is a rapidly aging society. The “official” fertility rate is 1.3. But University of Wisconsin demographer Dr Yi Fuxian places China’s fertility at 0.9, slightly above South Korea, the world’s lowest. Whatever the number, China’s population has already begun to decline.

China’s current population is reported as 1.4 billion, but:

The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences projects China’s population will halve by 2100 if the country maintains a 1.3 TFR. If the TFR stabilizes at 1.2, the country will have a population of only 480 million by the end of the century.​

That is even lower than The Lancet’s 2017 projection of 732 million in 2100.

China’s workforce shrinks by millions each year. Almost one in five Chinese are age 60 and over. The boys in Beijing are in a near panic. Consider the bungled release of the last census, withheld for weeks. Bad news from the regime is not good politics.

Writing on the wall​

People running the People’s Republic saw it coming.

Back in 2015 when one-child was being phased out, Beijing’s marriage registration office issued a poster saying,

“Being a good wife and good mother is the biggest achievement of a woman.”​

The one-child policy was officially abolished in 2016. There followed a modest birth spike, but not for long. In 2021 it was declared permissible to have three children. However, with rising costs of living and a generation reared as only children, thus far nothing has changed.

Then in 2021 came a brilliant idea: The Communist Party leads the people, so Party members should set an example and have three children. From China Reports Network:

[Party members] should shoulder the responsibility and obligation of the country’s population growth and act on the three-child policy… No party member should use any excuse, objective or personal, to not marry or have children, nor can they use any excuse to have only one or two children.​

The editorial called for party members unable to have children to “educate, guide and assist family members and friends to proactively have three children.”

[Party members] should never do nothing when family and friends are not getting married or giving birth, and should never be indifferent about them only having one or two children with any excuse.​

Calling out the Party to practise what it preaches went viral. Then it suddenly disappeared. While China Reports Network is a state media outlet, commentary about the Party must be thoroughly vetted — thus the delete button.

The Chinese Communist Party has over 95 million members. Party membership means prestige. Party edicts are not taken lightly. Members setting a patriotic example could possibly have had an impact. Hasn’t happened.

University of California Irvine professor Wang Feng nailed it about China’s population policy: “It’s outdated. What China needs is not another state policy, but rather a better and fairer society.” Note that the most visible Chinese population policy critics — Professors Wang and Yi — are outside China.

Carrots and sticks​

All the same, the government is waging an aggressive campaign to boost fertility.

During one-child days, abortions were required. Now the government discourages them to promote “gender equality.”

China also discourages vasectomy. Many hospitals no longer offer the procedure. Young men requesting vasectomies are now counselled to wait and not do something they will regret.

Measures such as direct payments, home purchase support and reduced taxes are being enacted in many localities.

A city in Sichuan is paying $80 per month to couples with two or three children.

A county in Gansu offers a $6200 real estate subsidy for families with multiple children as well as a $1500 annual payment.

A Guangdong Province village offers as much as $500 a month for second and third babies until age two and a half. Not bad where average personal income is US$3300. However, the sponsor there is a wealthy private citizen.

Just last month Jiangsu became the first Chinese province to offer subsidies for maternity leave for second and third children. Also, the provincial government in Nanjing announced that families with more than one child can purchase an additional property at family-discounted mortgage rates.

It is too soon to assess the effect of such measures, but China hands are not optimistic.

Losing battle​

Reggia Littlejohn, founder/president of Women’s Rights Without Frontiers, a group founded to “oppose forced abortion, gendercide and sexual slavery in China”, is skeptical.

The three-child policy will not work any better at encouraging births than the two-child policy. I predict that China’s birth rate will continue to decline.​

​

Will it [the government] turn to forced pregnancy? Since coercion is at the core of their population control policy, this possibility cannot be dismissed.​

Beijing knows all about the carrot-and-stick approach. Back in 2017, some Chinese localities began requiring deposits from couples when they married, which would be refunded upon the birth of a second child.

Beijing is well aware of the looming population collapse. Rumours abound. Are procreation quotas coming? Financial penalties for not having children? Or is the “Great Fall of China” upon us?


file:///C:/Users/pieta/Documents/The%20Origins%20of%20Liberalism%20and%20Leftism.pdf

 

[Petr]

This guy is the leading proponent of the conspiracy theory that claims China's demographic problems are even considerably worse than is officially admitted:

 

[Macrobius]

There is no intelligence without counter-intelligence

#OSINT for the win.

 

[Petr]

There is no intelligence without counter-intelligence

#OSINT for the win.

What exactly is your point?

 

[Macrobius]

What exactly is your point?

Nothing I haven't said already.

Also, Tractor Pulls are de bomb

Nationalism? Be careful what you wish for, my fren.

Counter-Intelligence and OSINT

Not exactly sure where to put topics like Counter-Intelligence (which was under Miscellaneous in the old Phora) and the like, so here for now. http://www.thephora.net/forum/forum/the-academy/miscellaneous/91086-counter-intelligence This thread was a transcript of this book (links recommended)...

thephora.net

 

[Petr]

The Chinese patriots are indignantly denying the aforementioned conspiracy theory:

 

[Petr]

Until now, East Asian countries' fertility has fallen mostly due to their own vices (when combined with modern birth control techniques), like money-chasing materialism, living in cramped quarters, and aborting female fetuses and almost all kids spawned out of marriage. But now decadent Western ideology begins to be added to the mix, and can be expected to make things even much worse - the worst of both worlds:

 

[Lord Osmund de Ixabert]

The Chinese for several decades now have been telling big lies about their actual population figures. So the true state of affairs in east asia as a whole is impossible to determine.

 

[Petr]

 

[Petr]

Iran is also now under the replacement fertility level:

Over 537,000 births registered in 6 months

TEHRAN – Some 537,127 births were registered in Iran during the first half of the current Iranian calendar year (started March 21), according to the Civil Registration Organization.

www.tehrantimes.com

Over 537,000 births registered in 6 months​

December 12, 2022 - 20:0


TEHRAN – Some 537,127 births were registered in Iran during the first half of the current Iranian calendar year (started March 21), according to the Civil Registration Organization.

The provinces of Tehran with 68,919 newborns, Razavi Khorasan with 51,571, and Sistan-Baluchestan with 43,979 had the highest number of births in the first 6 months of this year.

The provinces of Semnan, Ilam, and Kohgiluyeh-Boyarahmad, respectively, had the lowest number of births in the country.

Also, over the aforementioned period, 208,177 deaths have been registered across the country; Tehran, Khorasan Razavi, and Isfahan, respectively, recorded the highest death rate. However, the three provinces of Ilam, Kohgiluyeh-Boyerahmad, and Semnan recorded the lowest number of deaths.

Births declined in spring

A total of 269,748 births were registered in the spring (March 21-June 21), showing a decrease of 10,816 births compared to the same period last year, according to the report released by the Statistical Center of Iran.

Over the first three months of this year, 130,715 girls and 139,033 boys were born in the country.

The fertility rate declined to 1.71 children in the Iranian calendar year 1399 (March 2020-March 2021), reaching below the replacement level.

Replacement level is the amount of fertility needed to keep the population the same from generation to generation. It refers to the total fertility rate that will result in a stable population without it increasing or decreasing.

Population growth policies

President Ebrahim Raisi has urged all responsible bodies and organizations to adopt national policies in line with the goal of population growth.

All the institutions and organizations of the country are obliged to prepare their plans and programs within the framework of the population growth policy and follow up on their implementation seriously, he said, IRIB reported.

He referred to "population" as one of the important and key points in the 7th national development plan (2021-2026).

The president considered promoting the culture of marriage and reducing divorce and helping to solve the problem of infertility as some of the effective factors in increasing the population, which should be the priority of attention and action of all institutions.