Why Japan, China, and most of the world is in big demographic trouble (but the U.S. is not)

The Barbarian said:

In late October, Chinese President Xi Jinping told the National Women’s Congress that “We should actively foster a new type of marriage and childbearing culture.” Such a statement is rich coming from a man, especially one who leads a party that for decades actively and sometimes brutally enforced family planning policies. It is also delusional: In all probability, China’s baby bust cannot be reversed, at least not anytime soon.
...
Yet even if China somehow does defy past trends and manages to boost its national fertility rates substantially, it will take nearly two decades to pay off as babies born today finally enter the workforce. Meanwhile, its top-heavy “constrictive” population pyramid thanks to a decades-long one-child policy—which was only abandoned in 2016—will mean increasing old age dependency and the social and economic costs that come with it.

Read More: China’s Aging Population Is a Major Concern. But Its Youth May Be an Even Bigger Problem

The U.S. has been spared a similar fate than China—all thanks to immigration. The more than 1 million immigrants who come to the U.S. every year are a key underwriter of U.S. national power, leaving aside the thorny domestic politics around immigration policy.

Like the U.S., mass immigration is the only plausible short-term fix for China’s population crisis. But China under Xi has no interest in a Western-style melting pot—like elsewhere in Asia including Japan—that brings in millions of immigrants. He has spent years promoting a Han Chinese national identity.

Can China’s Baby Bust Be Reversed? Don’t Count On It

President Xi Jinping may want to foster a "childbearing culture" but demographic trends are incredibly hard to reverse.

time.com

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That's what demographic winter looks like. Made all the worse by sex selection abortion favoring killing off females. So the female population capable of having babies is reduced well beyond what the general numbers would tell you. And then lots of these women don't even want children.

Will Chinese president XI have to FORCE women to have six children? He might do that, as he has forced abortion to prevent a second child. Dictators dictate. Policy comes and goes.

The Barbarian said:

The U.S. has been spared a similar fate than China—all thanks to immigration. The more than 1 million immigrants who come to the U.S. every year are a key underwriter of U.S. national power, leaving aside the thorny domestic politics around immigration policy.

Like the U.S., mass immigration is the only plausible short-term fix for China’s population crisis. But China under Xi has no interest in a Western-style melting pot—like elsewhere in Asia including Japan—that brings in millions of immigrants. He has spent years promoting a Han Chinese national identity.

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I think the problem is multi-faceted, and that people are looking at it from some very counter-productive angles.

From the climate perspective, the consensus is that "more people = more emissions"

So it becomes a bit of a balancing act with regards to "how do we have enough people to backfill the roles people are leaving behind as they get older" and more importantly, "how to we make sure we have enough people paying into the system to care for those elderly people once they can no longer work". Because as China's finding out, having a society that's tilted heavily toward people who are of retiree age doesn't work.

And I think proposing mass migration is just a band-aid, and could potentially create more problems than it solves (as you're just moving the problem of "lack of workers needed to help pay for the elderly and sick" onto other countries, many of which are in much more dire financial circumstances.

If we move 6 million working aged individuals from Country A to Country B so they can work, pay taxes, and help prop up entitlements for the elderly, now Country A has the problem of "we've got all of these elderly collecting, and not enough paying in".

I think perhaps people have identified the problem accurately, but perhaps are looking for the wrong solution to it.


...but even if we put climate matters aside and pretend that we could add as many people as we wanted with no negative effect, or simply shuffle people around from country to country, China's unique in that they're going to have a much tougher time making their country an appealing destination for immigrants.

The reason why the US and UK have no problem getting to people to want to come here is because conditions (both social and economically) are markedly far better than in the original home country, as well as some geographic aspects.

Some of the places people are fleeing to come to the US are more appealing than China in certain ways. It would take very specific type of person to want to move from more freedom to less.

ThatRobGuy said:

It would take very specific type of person to want to move from more freedom to less.

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Descendants of ethnic Chinese, perhaps? However, for the most part they are doing very well where they are. The UK took in many Chinese, mainly through Hong Kong. The are certainly doing well here.

Whyayeman said:

Descendants of ethnic Chinese, perhaps? However, for the most part they are doing very well where they are. The UK took in many Chinese, mainly through Hong Kong. The are certainly doing well here.

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Not surprising...Chinese American immigrants (and their Children) do very well here as well (and would also likely have very little desire to move back)

But that's because the UK and US have societies that are appealing in a variety of ways.

It's not a shocker that people from Mexico and Central America want to move here and/or Canada. So the "offset declining birth rates by moving more people in" can work (at least as a band-aid) for westernized countries.

I don't think China's in the same boat.

Apart from N. Korea (or maybe Loas...but Loas has such a small population that the entire county could move to China and wouldn't put a dent in the problem), are they even going to be able to find many people chomping at the bit to leave their current situation and move to China? If you look at the countries they share a border with, they're either countries that would be considered more hospitable than China, or they're predominantly Muslim countries, and Muslims (even ones living in poverty) would have some very understandable well-founded concerns about moving to China given their recent track record with the treatment of the Uyghurs.

The Barbarian said:

Or he could just have an open society based on the idea that immigration, hard work, and freedom will provide prosperity...

Naaahhh....

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Of course not. It goes against old style communism and new style capitalo-communism both. The State knows best. And Xi IS the State. No stinking 'open society' needed or wanted.

The Barbarian said:

He has spent years promoting a Han Chinese national identity.

Tucker Carlson would call them "heritage Chinese." This is why American grows and gets stronger. Waves of immigration made us a better nation. "A shining city on a hill" as Reagan put it. Not that it's always been that. But millions of immigrants believed in America and came here to take part in it. Turns out, it works pretty well, in spite of what racists are screaming.

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That is a big difference between the USA and China. People WANT to come to the USA. And they are halfway welcomed. People don't want to move to China and they are NOT welcomed. Migration TO China ain't gonna happen more than a few hundred people a year. People bust down walls and swim rivers to migrate to the USA.

The Barbarian said:

Or he could just have an open society based on the idea that immigration, hard work, and freedom will provide prosperity...

Naaahhh....

He has spent years promoting a Han Chinese national identity.

Tucker Carlson would call them "heritage Chinese." This is why American grows and gets stronger. Waves of immigration made us a better nation. "A shining city on a hill" as Reagan put it. Not that it's always been that. But millions of immigrants believed in America and came here to take part in it. Turns out, it works pretty well, in spite of what racists are screaming.

Click to expand...

Ahh, Han Replacement Theory

The Barbarian said:

In late October, Chinese President Xi Jinping told the National Women’s Congress that “We should actively foster a new type of marriage and childbearing culture.” Such a statement is rich coming from a man, especially one who leads a party that for decades actively and sometimes brutally enforced family planning policies. It is also delusional: In all probability, China’s baby bust cannot be reversed, at least not anytime soon.
...
Yet even if China somehow does defy past trends and manages to boost its national fertility rates substantially, it will take nearly two decades to pay off as babies born today finally enter the workforce. Meanwhile, its top-heavy “constrictive” population pyramid thanks to a decades-long one-child policy—which was only abandoned in 2016—will mean increasing old age dependency and the social and economic costs that come with it.

Read More: China’s Aging Population Is a Major Concern. But Its Youth May Be an Even Bigger Problem

The U.S. has been spared a similar fate than China—all thanks to immigration. The more than 1 million immigrants who come to the U.S. every year are a key underwriter of U.S. national power, leaving aside the thorny domestic politics around immigration policy.

Like the U.S., mass immigration is the only plausible short-term fix for China’s population crisis. But China under Xi has no interest in a Western-style melting pot—like elsewhere in Asia including Japan—that brings in millions of immigrants. He has spent years promoting a Han Chinese national identity.

Can China’s Baby Bust Be Reversed? Don’t Count On It

President Xi Jinping may want to foster a "childbearing culture" but demographic trends are incredibly hard to reverse.

time.com

Click to expand...

People aren't having babies in the US because of ever rising costs, and flat wages, which are in part...driven by mass illegal immigration.

If people could afford a house (which goes up in cost along with the increased demands created by illegals). Schools become overcrowded, and underfunded, because of increased demand. In fact, the increased demand raises prices for everything.

People do want to have children, but see it unaffordable if they can't own a house in their 30s. They can't own a house, because their wages are depressed by a vast illegal workforce, which also drives up the prices of everything.

The idea, that "oh no! We'll run out if workers!" Let's import some more...quick!" Is so stupid it's hard to fathom anyone believing it.

We won't run out of workers, we'll run out of low paying jobs, corporations will have to cut into profits and offer benefits. That's what they're trying to avoid. If construction work paid 50$ an hour with medical and dental, then you'd suddenly have plenty of workers.

ThatRobGuy said:

I think the problem is multi-faceted, and that people are looking at it from some very counter-productive angles.

From the climate perspective, the consensus is that "more people = more emissions"

The Connections Between Population and Climate Change

Climate change is one of humanity’s most critical challenges. Let's explore the links between population growth and climate change.

populationconnection.org

So it becomes a bit of a balancing act with regards to "how do we have enough people to backfill the roles people are leaving behind as they get older" and more importantly, "how to we make sure we have enough people paying into the system to care for those elderly people once they can no longer work". Because as China's finding out, having a society that's tilted heavily toward people who are of retiree age doesn't work.

And I think proposing mass migration is just a band-aid, and could potentially create more problems than it solves (as you're just moving the problem of "lack of workers needed to help pay for the elderly and sick" onto other countries, many of which are in much more dire financial circumstances.

If we move 6 million working aged individuals from Country A to Country B so they can work, pay taxes, and help prop up entitlements for the elderly, now Country A has the problem of "we've got all of these elderly collecting, and not enough paying in".

I think perhaps people have identified the problem accurately, but perhaps are looking for the wrong solution to it.

Click to expand...

They already have the solution. Where do you think the taxpayer money to nations like Guatemala or Mexico or any other nation we give aid to under the pretense of "improving their way of life so they don't want to leave" goes?

Our big economic markets that can't export their workers overseas want to import the workers.

I mean, seriously, if we have given Guatemala 5 billion in aid (I don't know the real number) and they aren't improving things like infrastructure and schools....why do we continue giving them aid? Why wouldn't we stop because they pocketed it?

It's pretty simple. We're paying to send us new workers....which perpetuates the problem.

ThatRobGuy said:

...but even if we put climate matters aside and pretend that we could add as many people as we wanted with no negative effect, or simply shuffle people around from country to country, China's unique in that they're going to have a much tougher time making their country an appealing destination for immigrants.

Click to expand...

They aren't though. They're importing brides. They're importing baby-makers, not workers.

ThatRobGuy said:

The reason why the US and UK have no problem getting to people to want to come here is because conditions (both social and economically) are markedly far better than in the original home country, as well as some geographic aspects.

Some of the places people are fleeing to come to the US are more appealing than China in certain ways. It would take very specific type of person to want to move from more freedom to less.

Click to expand...

I dunno....the tankies seem enamored of China.

The Barbarian said:

You'd have to have a society that would provide a better deal than the one you have. And it's no band-aid; it's how we became a great nation. There have always been waves of immigration to America.

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The reason why I refer to it as a "band-aid" is because while it solves our domestic issue with regards to that problem of "not enough workers to help prop up the retirees", it's basically exacerbates that very same issue in the places we're taking workers from (and that also happen to be the recipients of our foreign aid)


If we look at it sort of like "roads" issue. If my county has a shortage of supplies for filling potholes and repairing roads, sure, taking those supplies from the next county over solves my problem in the short term. But now the next county over has that exact same problem. Which the state-level government is going to address by raising taxes on everyone in order to backfill the resources the other county lost by us taking them.


I still think the better solution/idea to pursue for this is what Andrew Yang had floated back when he was still in the mix.

Automate where it makes sense (meaning you don't need clutter up the world with "more people") and leverage an automation tax that both A) provides the company a net savings so they'll actually agree to it, while also B) providing more tax revenue than the government would've gotten before.

For example:
"Machine shop XYZ" was paying "Bill Jones" $50k (+ 7% in payroll taxes).
When it's time for Bill to retire, instead of needing to replace Bill with another person (who they'd also have to pay the $50k +3% to), fill that vacancy with automation, and have the company pay a $20k/year automation tax for that position (and each other position they do that for)

The government gets more tax revenue to work with, the company shells out less overall than they were before, and we don't have to add more people (IE: carbon emissions) to satisfy a need.


To me that seems like a better idea than playing the "shuffle people around" game.

And especially with regards to China. Even if by some miracle they changed all of their social policies to make it a desirable destination... they're one of the worst polluters, show no interest in correcting that, and feeding them more people to help their businesses & economy grow stronger is just asking for more pollution.

The Barbarian said:

What percentage of government expenditure do you think foreign aid comprises? It's actually less than 1% of the U.S. budget:

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Right now a very small amount... if we basically steal/encourage everyone else's working aged individuals to backfill our own open positions, that number would go up.

The Barbarian said:

China and Japan are not competitive with the U.S. for workers. That's how free enterprise works. Notice that employers within the U.S. compete with each other for workers, too. You don't hear COSTCO exectutives wailing that "no one wants to work anymore!" Guess why. The employers who got smart, are doing pretty well. The others are like McDonalds, trying to get customers to do the order taking work.

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No, we're not directly competitive with them, but we'd be playing the same game. We'd be backfilling with working aged individuals from North, Central, and South America... they'd be aiming to do the same with Asia and the Middle East.

Basically, the problem I'm concerned about would be created by two different countries in parallel in two different parts of the world.

The Barbarian said:

I looked over the idea, and I'm not immediately opposed to it, but I have to admit that I'm more inclined to free up the labor market to get a capitalist solution.

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While I'm definitely a capitalist, and vehemently oppose actual socialism and communism... I'll be the first to admit that capitalism (unfettered) is too blunt an instrument to solve certain issues in the timeframe in which they need to be solved to avert major issues.

For instance, if "SludgeCorp" was dumping toxins in a river that fed a town's water supply...sure, eventually the market would make corrections and put them out of business...but not after a bunch of people got sick and/or died.

Example, the fur and diamond industries had to end up changing practices due to market perceptions of them, but it took decades and decades, and a lot of bad stuff was done in the process.

There are certain issues where the "let the market correct for it" makes more sense, and is the path of least resistance in the grand scheme of things. There are others that are much more "dire".

The Barbarian said:

Don't see how. You see, employers don't own people. They hire them. Free markets work better than collusion between employers or other groups, to most efficiently allocate resources.

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So if our foreign aid is contingent on the economic conditions of another country, and we do something that makes their economic conditions worse, it stands to reason they're going to need more money.

For instance, if we had an agreement where "Since you're my neighbor, I'll cover the portion of your rent you can pay"...and as it currently stands, I'm paying $200/month of your rent for you, if I do something that reduces your income by another $200, it's only a matter of time before I have to start giving you $400 instead of $200.

The Barbarian said:

Which is why corporations can't be allowed to do things that harm others, just as individuals can't be allowed to do things that harm others.

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Correct, but we don't leave those kinds of situations up to the "marketplace".

The Barbarian said:

You seem more of a socialist than I am. Bottom line, all China has to do to become competitive with the US is to make society more open with less state control. Or they can turn their backs on all the economic progress they've made since Mao died, and let the country slide back to the way it was.

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Socialism is a centrally planned economy with a massive public sector, that's not at all remotely what I'm suggesting.

Capitalism is great, but like anything else, needs some guardrails.


The root of what I was suggesting is that, given that we know "more people = more pollution", and countries are having a problem with "not enough people working to cover the entitlements cost of people who can't" we need to explore solutions that don't consist of "make more people" or "move the problem from country A to country B".

It's a simple numbers game.

If you and I both have countries:
Your country has 5 million working people (paying taxes, etc) and 500k people who are collecting social security (or whatever equivalent other countries call it)

If I have a taxpayer shortage problem on the horizon, and convince 1 million of your people to come and live & work in my country and pay taxes into my system, that puts your country in a tough spot in which you're going to have to depend on the charity of other nations to fulfill your obligations.

In a global economy, I haven't really solved the problem, I've just transferred the worst effects of it from my country to yours in that scenario.