The good news for China is that its “One Child” policy appears to be working:
China’s one-child policy has created a generation of “only” children that now numbers 90 million, a senior family planning official said Friday.
From the beginning of the one-child policy at the end of the 1970s through last year, some 90 million children who would never have siblings have been born, most in cities, said Zhao Baige, vice minister for China’s National Population and Family Planning Commission.
The Chinese government contends the one-child policy has helped prevent 400 million births ‚Äî about the size of the U.S. and Mexican populations combined ‚Äî and aided China’s rapid economic development.
The bad news of course is that 20 years from now, those 90 million kids will be shouldering the burden of sponsoring the retirement of something like a billion Chinese pensioners.
It’s a good thing they’ll be busy working, because getting a date will be harder than it probably ought to be, too:
Critics say the policy has led to forced abortions, sterilizations and a dangerously imbalanced sex ratio due to a traditional preference for male heirs, which has prompted countless families to abort female fetuses in hopes of getting boys…
She blamed the imbalanced sex ratio on a traditional preference for boys and the availability of gender testing of fetuses with sonograms. She said the government was addressing the problem with education, subsidies and strict regulation of sonograms…
Government statistics show that 117 boys are born for every 100 girls in China, well above the average for industrialized countries of between 104 and 107 boys for every 100 girls.
So at least they’ve got that going for them.
You know, it’s gonna get ugly when you’ve got that many frustrated guys running around.
Mark Steyn’s new book claims that the overabundance of Chinese boys coupled with Russias low longevity for males will prompt a “cross polinization” of China and Russia; Widowed babushkas marrying Chinese men…
He also thinks that Russia will sell the Eastern part of Russia to China, much like they sold Alaska to America.
His demographic conclusions are hard to argue with…
I’ve been a sometime lurker here, enjoying myself hugely without commitment…..found Lex due to an evil Canadian friend…
Gotta comment on the China thing…
One of the first things to go will be their cultural imperative to marry only pure Chinese……
but their population is gonna fall thru its own posterior in another generation….
any speculation on what then?
thanks, Lex, as always, too little time to really enjoy you…..
I agree with Babs above, Mark Steyn has been touting birth rates for some time now, and the conclusions are very interesting. As for China, it should make their version of “Cheaters” on TV pretty brutal…
I can think of many friends who have adopted Chinese girls, as well. Put that in the ol’ demographic pipe for smokin’…
China is ok with this trend in the long run because what I have seen (based on a very small cross section including dating a Chinese girl for a while) is that Chinese live very much in the present. If the future does not turn out well then it somehow is yoour fault somewhere.
If Chinese marry other than Chinese, it will be Koreans, Thais, and Vietnamese they will go for first-not Russians.
China in recent months has begun to crack down on the adoption industry. They also are very concerned about another phenomenon-Chines women sneaking across the border to Hong Kong to have their babies and hopefully gain Permanent Resident status through the effort. Hemlock has blogged a lot about it.
Shipmates,
I’d toss out another part of the equation for consideration: The psychological and social consequences of raising single children. What happens in a generation or two to the societal mores of a nation, an entire populace, that has no concept of siblings? Of sharing? Of having to consider others?
I can speak with some authority on this, as the oldest of six children. My wife is an only child. She has absolutley no concept of thinking of anyone besides herself when she wants to do something. She never had to consider anyone else’s interests other than her own and her parent’s, so, for example, if she wanted to go somewhere she could go on her own time as the mood struck her. She didn’t have to worry about what to listen to on the stereo, when to do laundry, how much to cook for supper, what to have for supper, etc.
I, on the other hand, grew up with the concept of patience, sharing, and thinking of the consequences of my actions on others. Imagine an entire nation who are concerned only with personal values. They will never be able to grasp the idea of considering how an act will affect their family, because they will not have known a true “family” with siblings. They will think only of how something will affect themselves, and THAT is something to ponder, both for what it means to how they will view the rest of the world, and how they will view their own government.
Respects,
Only considers birth rates. It doesn’t take into consideration the number of (educated) Chinese women that leave for opportunity elsewhere. Where I work (US) we have several Chinese women programmers/engineers (a brain drain factor as well).
About two years ago, someone wrote a book on the gender imbalance, from the geo-political/military perspective. It seems history has show, time and time again, that societies with such and imbalance tend to build large a military and then commence to go “crop stomping” in the neighboring territories…
Hmmm…connection to larger Navy, ASAT testing, the race to the strategic high ground moon??????
Food for thought…
Steyn’s talking through his hat — Russia will not “sell” its eastern province. They are xenophobic to the nth degree where the “near beyond” (states on their borders, like Eastern Europe, the ‘stans and China) is concerned and wouldn’t even think about giving up any Russian soil. Especially to the Chinese. Even in sparsely populated Siberia.
- SJS
There’s another problem as well. For a long time, the excess males were able to join the armed forces, which kept them active, so to speak. This helped alleviate the employment situation. As China’s armed forces become more professional, they are downsizing, which means that the army can’t absorb as many people.
There are reports of asian women being imported into China under false pretenses, as well as women being kidnapped.
This is a perfect example of the law of unintended consequences. When you factor in the environmental problems that they are having, as well as the inequitable distribution of income, the prospect for something nasty happening begins to ratchet up.