Chinese women have had it. Their response to Beijing’s demands for more children? No.
Fed up with government harassment and wary of the sacrifices of child-rearing, many young women are putting themselves ahead of what Beijing and their families want. Their refusal has set off a crisis for the Communist Party, which desperately needs more babies to rejuvenate China’s aging population.
With the number of babies in free fall—fewer than 10 million were born in 2022, compared with around 16 million in 2012—China is headed toward a demographic collapse. China’s population, now around 1.4 billion, is likely to drop to just around half a billion by 2100, according to some projections. Women are taking the blame.
In October, Chinese Leader Xi Jinping urged the state-backed All-China Women’s Federation to “prevent and resolve risks in the women’s field,” according to an official account of the speech.
“It’s clear that he was not talking about risks faced by women but considering women as a major threat to social stability,” said Clyde Yicheng Wang, an assistant professor of politics at Washington and Lee University who studies Chinese government propaganda.
The State Council, China’s top government body, didn’t respond to questions about Beijing’s population policies.
Which is basically an accounting issue. We could produce all the stuff we need with a smaller workforce, but that would squeeze a lot of profit out of the production system. Simply put billionaires would suffer. Without an ever increasing consumer population there is the horror of degrowth.
I don’t think we can and I think the ongoing labor shortage is proof of it. At least not yet, but with advances in automation and robotics, then I think it’s likely. Also we totally need something like a UBI at that point because we would surely tip the scales towards labor surplus at that point. Which is where I would like to see municipal programs pop up around the country to employ people and pay them really well to clean up the environment. Plant trees, clean up rivers, basically rehab the planet. It’s all wishful thinking but I like talking about it lol