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China Ends One-Child Policy
jones_supa writes: China has scrapped its one-child policy, allowing all couples to have two children for the first time since draconian family planning rules were introduced in 1979. The announcement followed a four-day Communist Party summit in Beijing where China's top leaders debated financial reforms and how to maintain growth at a time of heightened concerns over the economy. China will "fully implement a policy of allowing each couple to have two children as an active response to an ageing population," the party said in a statement published by Xinhua.
Now just uncensored the internet and you'll earn a bit of respect in the world.
Now that the Chinese can counterfeit even rice, why the fuck not??
People in the west don't understand that for most Chinese, the one child policy doesn't have effect. Because there are so many exceptions.
1) If you and your partner were single kids, you can have two kids.
2) Ethnic minorities have higher limits, and foreigners, including Hong Kong and Taiwan can have unlimited
3) Rich people just pay the tax and have another child, because they are so rich from corruption money is nothing for them.
4) Some provinces had already lifted the ban, or lessened it greatly.
5) Children born outside China, including HK and Taiwan, don't count. Hence the large amount of birth tourism.
So this is pretty much a symbolic act, but at least it's the communists admitting they can't control everything. I wonder how this will be spun off in China, since there the communists are still treated as nearly perfect, the thing everyone should aspire to be.
So the solution to having to many people is to make more people? Got it.
We have a lot of old people so need even more young people in the hope that some will look after them. ANother generation down the line - those young people become an even bigger population of old people. Rinse and repeat until the human population size causes complete eco collapse.
Whats the solution? Wish I knew.
They haven't ended the policy. They've changed it to a two child policy.
They've still got their hands in things they have no business being in.
China needs more cheap labor, increasing the population will ensure that
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
With a new middle-class generation it's about the right time to change or be rid of the policy altogether, as that range of "overproduction" typically found in impoverishment and agrarian/low-skilled working conditions is being surpassed. The policy worked only too well considering they're projected to have difficulty supporting an enormous aging population with much fewer offspring, mostly male at that. So that will be the hurdle.
It's true the population is still growing, but at a much more diminished rate per capita. Eventually (like, 80-100 years from now) it will be in decline much the way Japan's is if immigration policy is kept intact. And that's ok. You don't NEED a perpetually growing population to be prosperous. Growth does help skyrocket GDP but once the country is in a comfortable stage it seems redundant, unnecessary.
...being Middle Class, it will be even harder for their urban populations to even want to have children, period.
Chinas economy and society exploded in a mass rush to bring its populations out of an agrarian based society into the 21st century in a single generation. They have come close to achieving that, however, those millions(billions?) now experiencing their "first taste of the First World", the Chinese middle class, with their new found luxury goods, cars, etc; will start to behave more like those in other First World countries like Japan, the US and Europe.
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
What if the whole world adopted the 2-child policy? Won't that stabilize the population so that it won't increase or decrease in the long term? Any imbalance can be corrected with a 1-child policy (for overpopulation) or 3-child policy (for underpopulated countries).
How will the past one child policy affect China's foreign policy? If a family only has only one child how ready are they to risk that child in a war? Are the parents who have only one child now of an age where they can affect national policy or are the present policy makers of a generation that was still able to have more than one and therefore more open to this risk? If there is an affect how will relaxing this policy affect China's foreign policy?
[citation needed]
People in the west don't understand that for most Chinese, the one child policy doesn't have effect. Because there are so many exceptions.
1) If you and your partner were single kids, you can have two kids.
2) Ethnic minorities have higher limits, and foreigners, including Hong Kong and Taiwan can have unlimited
3) Rich people just pay the tax and have another child, because they are so rich from corruption money is nothing for them.
4) Some provinces had already lifted the ban, or lessened it greatly.
5) Children born outside China, including HK and Taiwan, don't count. Hence the large amount of birth tourism.
So this is pretty much a symbolic act, but at least it's the communists admitting they can't control everything. I wonder how this will be spun off in China, since there the communists are still treated as nearly perfect, the thing everyone should aspire to be.
According to China's Health Ministry, the one child policy had forced 336 million abortions as of 2013. It also had forced the sterilization of 196 million men and women.
In the grand scheme of things, this is something it's worth making a big deal about. Certainly more worthy of a mention than female stereotypes in media and other injustices against women that get a lot more coverage. But yeah, they've been relaxing the restrictions for awhile now.
But the demographic that came off worst was men.
Yes, though 2-child isn't replacement. You need closer to 2.1, so who gets 3 and who gets 2? You'd have to have a lottery or something.
And you need more than 2 because some people don't reproduce. Also, some children die after the parents are too old to make another, but the child was too young to make their own. So to cover the non-reproduced deaths, you need more than 2.0 children per family.
Learn to love Alaska
And now time for me to get modded down
Well, at least he got 1 thing right ... ;)
"If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear." - Every fascist, ever
Guess the aging party leaders wanted more child brides
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
The other issue is universal application. If the rules are like China and don't apply to foreign born children, we'll have breeder nations and ones that need 1.9 or less for zero growth due to immigration.
Learn to love Alaska
Bullshit.
It is well documented that all you need to do to push the reproduction rate below replacement is to have comprehensive sex education and easy access to birth control.
We will probably have to move to ever more generous paid family leave policies just to keep the population stable.
So fuck off with the discredited Malthusianism.
Sure, birth rates are falling due increased urbanization and all that stuff - that is pretty clear. Are they falling fast enough to give us a max population figure that allows for the rest of the planet's ecosystem to thrive? Not so clear. Saying that we should be seriously studying the impact our population is likely to have on the planet is not really "discredited Malthusianism".
China has also been doing everything it can to convert most of its population into at least middle class consumers of domestic products. There are huge shifts going on now -- rural people are being picked up and moved to cities to increase efficiency of delivering services to them. Infrastructure projects are being undertaken to basically force-build a consumer society, kind of the same way the Soviets forced industrialization on a largely agrarian society in the early 20th Century.
In my opinion, this is why China will take over the top spots from the US and European countries in the future. I know we said the Japanese were going to take over the US in the 80s, but their culture is pretty insular compared to China's. The reason they'll succeed, besides sheer numbers, will be their ability to control things centrally while maintaining a mostly market economy. Things just get done in China; there's no debates, no government shutdowns, nothing. It's not great from a human rights perspective, but it's a perfect combination for building a robust economy. When you can do what needs to be done without having to take every single special interest in mind, decision making is faster and central planning succeeds.
Probably the upper middle class, the wealthy and the poor. The rich need to spread their wealth somehow. The poor need more children to help in their old age, chores etc.
Meh, the 'invisible hand of nature' will regulate the population. Either China (and the rest of the collective globe) will get control of its population growth, or they will spew vast amounts of Co2 as a result of existing in a modern society and the Earth will heat up and kill off vast numbers of people. I don't see 20 billion people living in a carbon neutral fashion any time soon.
Nature will find a level.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
Well, they do have all those islands now to put them on...
Overpopulation HAS already happened. humans breed at an exponential rate. Have you never even visited California?? You can throw a rock from one house to another everywhere except national parks. That is 158,648 square miles of 40 million people. That's about 4 thousands of a square mile to every person. How is that NOT over populated? They have power and water shortages, how is that NOT overpopulation? Food prices for even the most offensive parts of an animal (offal) have skyrocketed to astronomical proportions. How is that NOT overpopulation?
Now this is disappointing news on a couple of levels. First and foremost is the fact that China (the world leader in population control) has backed off. This is disappointing because it gave credence to communism. It's always important to be able to see the benefits (as well as the detriments) of an alternative political structure. I'm no fan of communism, but at times it has appeared to be capable of getting the hard issues at least addressed. Issues where democracy often fails. Not that democracy is a failure, just that it has it's weaknesses. Blindly following any given political structure is at best idiotic. Knowing and acknowledging the strengths and weaknesses of a political construct is vital to it's very continued existence.
Now on another level, this will only give democracy advocates false fodder for their endless campaigns of back patting. While doing nothing to address the real issues. The primary of which is global warming. An issue of where all of the "scientists" insist is human caused. Whether it is or is not is completely irrelevant. The fact that it is happening is relevant. However the root cause of the situation is obvious. It's not WHAT people are doing that is the cause of the problem. Its HOW MANY people are doing it that IS the problem. So ANY global warming "solution" that does not address global population control will be completely ineffective and ultimately pointless.
Europe's birth rate, is in negative territory, same with the USA, England, and pretty much EVERY country in the world...WITH THE EXCEPTION of those from the middle east. The Islamic/Muslim population is EXPLODING. And they are exporting millions to Europe, USA, Canada, and other countries. As those populations continue to explode (and the "leaders" of their race/religion have told them, it is their DUTY to multiply) in a generation, the Islamic/Muslim religion/population will be the majority of the worlds people, allowing them to "conquer" the world by shear numbers. China obviously sees that, or they would continue to keep their population down.
Tell that to the muslims. They have been told by their religious "leaders" it is their duty to produce children. They are exporting people around the world by the millions. In a generation or less, they will be the dominate population around the world.
Yeah more babies! I want baby! Baby, baby, baby!!! is not the proper response to this news.
I have seven children with another on the way, and I wanted to let you know, just to piss you off. :)
Secession is the right of all sentient beings.
In fact the one child policy was intended to create gradual drop. Because of the large number of young people already born 30 years ago, who may just now be having their first child, while they and their parents are still alive, the population is still growing, and will continue to grow for many more years. If I recall correctly, the most optimistic projections, assuming widespread and nearly perfect compliance with one child per mother, had the population leveling off in about the year 2050/
I think you are the one failing to fully think through the math as it applies to this issue. It takes decades for a reduction in birthrate to cause an actual drop in population. Age of first birth and number of births per woman both have an effect, but given that at any given time there are 3-5 generations of people alive, a drop in the birthrate among young females only slows the rate of growth a little at first. When their children in turn start to have children, if that generation maintains a low birthrate, the rate of grown will decline more - but will still probably be a positive absolute increase. Going out to the grandchild generation, if that third generation maintains a low birthrate, the population will actually start to shrink, as the grandparents and great grandparents start to die at a rate that is higher than the birthrate.
meets definition of emotional responder flipping out.
Bread and Circuses: Roman
Bread and Circuses and Sex: US/EU
Bread and Circuses and Sex and Children: CHINDIA
Casteism
The solution is to either increase automation so that old people don't need to be supported by able-bodied young people or fix genetically the symptoms of aging so people can remain able-bodied, if not young-looking, until the day they decide to die.