- cross-posted to:
- longreads@sh.itjust.works
- cross-posted to:
- longreads@sh.itjust.works
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.
Except that’s not what’s happening if you read the article, on either count.
Women aren’t resisting childbirth as an act of rebellion or as an exercise of their rights, there’s just too many competing pressures in their lives to table in having kids. Coupled with declining rates of attachment and a distraction-based economy, this isn’t a ‘win’ for anyone.
And population decline is a crisis we don’t know how to deal with. Old people have little economic output, but use up a lot of resources. It means the kids who are still born end up carrying a huge burden paying for and caring for older generations, they end up tax serfs in an aged care-based economy, and if older generations aren’t cared for you end up with human atrocities on a massive scale.
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Most of these comments are problematic. You don’t have to have children, but for most people it has been a pretty consistent and natural inclination. Now a whole generation are convincing themselves they don’t want children when they really just can’t, and rather than holding those responsible to account and improving all our circumstances, they’re treating it as some personal victory.
So true. More and more I’ve come to the realization that the ideal serving class is one that’s constantly distracted from their lives. You have a medium screen, a little screen, and a big screen, and the majority of us spend just about all day on them. The amount of ‘content’ to view and absorb is an ever growing behemoth that demands attention. You didn’t see the latest show/movie/tweet/tik-tok/sensationalized news story?? Then how are you going to relate to people who do??
with the advent of streaming services, I used to say this was the golden age of television, but really we’re just reached peak content. It’s all bread and circus, except they discovered they don’t even need the bread anymore. They don’t need to pay you enough for you to be fed and entertained, now it’s just enough that you have a screen with access to wifi.
A distracted worker doesn’t revolt. A distracted populace doesn’t concern themselves with the boring business of governing. A distracted nation doesn’t care about foundational societal issues like wealth inequality when there’s a new war every 6 months to have an opinion about. We’re so concerned with having an opinion that we forget to act on them.
Now here comes old money with their new problem, there aren’t going to be enough people to take advantage of in the future! who will they spit on with contempt, throw nickles at, and pay with experience? have more babies! they demand. because how else can they endlessly grow their wealth (and opinion of themselves) when there isn’t endless people to take advantage of?
Of course, all of us understand that endless growth of an organism destroys it’s host. Just like cancer, there’s just more and more of us, metastasized to ever region of the globe, into every niche pocket of despair we’re afforded by the circumstances of our birth. Our host is dying, and the ruling class says “keep growing, I’m not satisfied yet!” demanding we grow into our own destruction, solely for the ego of those who will be dead long before our collective death spiral concludes.
I’m thinking of starting a go fund me for a series of billboards that say only this:
“won’t someone rid us of these troublesome billionaires?”
Interesting points. Although endless growth may still continue, because eventually robots will be more affordable than human workers. Not because robots become cheaper, but because humans are more expensive.
I’m not some pie-in-the-sky future nut. I know the main issue is the short term problems. Like what do we do for the unemployed worker who can’t afford somewhere to live and has no investments? How can we deal with negative externalities like pollution and climate change?
These are the real challenges. Robots that talk to you and perform tasks are easy by comparison.
Population decline is the opposite of a crisis. The whole economy can fuck right off, entire regions can become abandoned, it would still be a massive win to cut the total human population in half twice.
Any time someone calls “crisis” I always ask “crisis for whom?”
Our parents
That’s a possible answer, frequently cited by advocates of endless population growth. History is certainly rife with prioritization of economy over people, so it’s an easy place to land.
I mean unless everyone who owns the means of production surrendered them to the commons, then I don’t see how it’s a wrong answer. We certainly don’t need to be putting in as much labor as we do.