Demographic crisis: in 5 years, China’s birth rate has plunged 40%
by Louis T March, Mercator:
China is in big trouble. Now before any of you Sinophobes start high-fiving about this, just remember that China is not alone. The US and Russia, among others, are also in trouble, but that’s beyond the scope of today’s titillating treatise.
China’s challenge? Demographic collapse. Consider: China’s birth rate has declined 40 percent in the last five years. The government just released 2022’s fertility rate, 1.09, one of the world’s lowest.
Last year China had only 9.56 million births; its population decreased by 850,000, the first decline since Mao’s Great Leap Forward, which was the largest non-wartime slaughter ever. More than 40 million perished from starvation, state terrorism and disease.
Fewer than 8 million births are projected for 2023, the lowest since wartime 1939.
[…] Modernity’s madness is savaging the Chinese family. The “lying flat” movement, previously reported by Mercator here and here has gone viral among Chinese youth who call themselves the “four nos” generation.
These “four nos youths,” abstaining from romantic relationships, marriage, property ownership, and parenthood, have attracted attention and rapidly become a societal trend. In July, an official survey in Guangzhou was shared online, revealing that nearly 10% of the same-age population fell into the category of “four unworthy youths.”
The Economist cover story this week nails it – China’s Disillusioned Youth:
A Zhejiang Sci-Tech University survey found that almost a third of students “have a negative attitude towards marriage.” The 2022 marriage rate was the lowest in 42 years. The rate for the first quarter of this year was even lower. A quarter of Chinese households are singles. In Hong Kong the percentage of childless couples more than doubled in five years to 43.2 percent. In a tour de force of understatement, the Hong Kong Family Planning Association called this “alarming.”
This comment on China’s Weibo platform went viral:
“Why is the birthrate falling? Because something is missing, that is ‘hope’. When it is difficult to get rich through hard work, and knowledge can hardly change one’s destiny, most people spend half their lives on a pile of reinforced concrete and their lives are worse than dogs. They don’t want to let the next generation suffer.”
Related Posts
Tags
Share This
