Too low births: near the day when the population will begin to shrink.
The Chinese Communist Party is trying in every way. It abolished the infamous one-child policy, first allowing two children in 2016 and a whopping three since last year. It offers cash rewards, longer maternity leave, concessions on kindergartens. He even organizes meetings to find a soul mate. But the stark reality does not change: in China, an increasing number of women have no intention of having children. “I like children, but I don’t want to raise any,” said Wang Mingkun, 28, who lives in Beijing and is a Korean language teacher. “I don’t want to burn all my savings.” In fact, the first deterrent seems to be the costs, especially those for education. This is how parents shell out much of their earnings, in a country where good schools and universities are seen as the first social elevator. The main way to a more peaceful existence. But the competition among students is fierce and costs soar. Also for this reason the government – to relieve stress and lighten domestic budgets – has recently banned private tutors. However, certain rules of tradition also influence the decline in births, which slowly change. “Women have been encouraged to study and make a career”, explains Zheng Mu, professor of sociology at the National University of Singapore, “but the gender dynamic in families has not changed, of which women are still often seen as the main custodians. “. So it becomes difficult to balance career on the one hand and children on the other. Rep Zeping, a well-known Chinese economist who is very popular on social media, wrote that to really solve the birth problem the government would have to invest more – at least the equivalent of 280 billion euros. The quickly viral article by Zeping sparked a heated debate online. To the point that the authorities have suspended the author’s Weibo account, a sign of how delicate the question of demographics is now. Numbers that, however, the government wanted to make public. In 2021, according to the National Bureau of Statistics, China’s birth rate plummeted for the fifth consecutive year, with the number of newborns dropping to the lowest level in the history of modern China. The births, 10 million and 620 thousand, barely exceeded the deaths. The day may therefore be approaching when China’s population will begin to shrink – and some analysts believe it has already reached its peak. For Beijing, this is a real threat to political and economic stability. The low birth rate and the increase in life expectancy mean that the inhabitants of working age (i.e. between 16 and 59 years; in China they retire very early) continue to decline, both in absolute terms and as a percentage of the rest of the population. This risks causing labor shortages, which in turn could hinder economic growth and reduce the tax revenues needed to support an aging society. And the country is already facing headwinds. Along with demographics, the government reported that the economy slowed in the final quarter of 2021. Blame the crisis in the real estate sector – one of the pillars of Chinese development -, the surge in the cost of coal and the new Covid outbreaks to which the authorities respond with relentless lockdowns. China is the only country left to exercise the “covid zero” policy, that is, instead of living with the virus, it tries to eliminate it. An approach that in this new phase of the pandemic risks bringing more disadvantages than advantages. But there are at least three factors to consider: the first, that Chinese vaccines (all produced internally, the most used: Sinovac and Sinopharm) are less effective than Western ones. The second concerns the weakness of the health system, with fewer ICU beds compared to the inhabitants. And then there are the Winter Olympics, they start on February 4th, and Beijing certainly doesn’t want Covid to spoil the party.
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