Zero Population Growth

[Wolfie]

Oh, I'm very aware of that- it's that most people in the US aren't "boys are the only thing I want." The culture here is different.

[VeraAnne]

Oh yeah, that's very true. In fact, IIRC, they did a study within the past year or so that showed that most people who do gender sorting want a girl. Of course, that might be because there are several disorders that women carry but men actually develop.

[Linnea]

My friend Daiyu lurks around here, but doesn't have an account because she doesn't think her written English is good enough to participate, but she's on the phone telling me to tell you that China has a lot more problems with the one-child policy than just a lack of girls. The population is aging, and there's not going to be enough younger people to replace the older people, and the workforce is going to have problems because of that. She says that a negative population growth is just as bad as too much population growth, although they're bad for different reasons.

I'm not trying to be an apologist for China or anything, but I have to say that I see negative population growth as less of a problem than overpopulation, because it's self-limiting. You have a generation or two where there are more old people than young people, and yes, there are problems. But eventually the "bulge" of older people dies off and you have a more balanced, and smaller, population, thereby putting less strain on the planet's resources. That probably sounds cold, but there it is. I suppose the ideal would be to figure out what the optimum population level is and try to give people incentives for maintaining it at that level.

This is interesting: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_so ... ility_rate. There are dozens of countries that have a lower fertility rate than China, without coercive policies. (Of course, this table doesn't tell the whole story, because a lot of the countries with really high fertility rates also have high child mortality rates.)

[VeraAnne]

you have a more balanced, and smaller, population

This only works if the genders are actually balanced. As it now stands, there are 130 men to every 100 women in some regions of China. This is going to be a huge, huge problem not just in terms of fertility, but also in terms of society in general.

[Linnea]

This only works if the genders are actually balanced. As it now stands, there are 130 men to every 100 women in some regions of China. This is going to be a huge, huge problem not just in terms of fertility, but also in terms of society in general.

Good point.

I have seen fundies (Kelly GenCedar I'm looking at you) go all !OMG Demographic Winter! about low birth rates among (white, Christian) Europeans, where you don't have the same kind of gender imbalance, and that's always struck me as silly. And racist.

[VeraAnne]

Yeah, the only problem I see in Europe is that they have a built their social structure to be heavily dependent on young workers. This is going to have to change in the coming years, as we're seeing in Greece right now. I agree that it will probably balance out in the long run, but I think the next 50-100 years will be interesting.

[Witsec1]

My friend Daiyu lurks around here, but doesn't have an account because she doesn't think her written English is good enough to participate, but she's on the phone telling me to tell you that China has a lot more problems with the one-child policy than just a lack of girls. The population is aging, and there's not going to be enough younger people to replace the older people, and the workforce is going to have problems because of that. She says that a negative population growth is just as bad as too much population growth, although they're bad for different reasons.

I don't think anyone here thinks China's one child policy is a good model. A bumper sticker advocating responsible choices =/= totalitarianism.

[debrand]

I don't think anyone here thinks China's one child policy is a good model. A bumper sticker advocating responsible choices =/= totalitarianism.

Thank you. That was my point.

[FaustianSlip]

With regard to China, I live in China now. The One Child Policy, while problematic in a variety of ways, is not evenly enforced, for one thing. There are a number of places (Fujian Province in particular) where the policy is barely enforced, if at all. It's not even slightly uncommon to encounter people from Fujian and other such areas who have two or three kids. People of one of China's 55 minority populations can also have more than one child. Similarly, families can choose to have more children after the first. You have to pay, but depending on where you're from, the amount paid (which, from what I understand, goes toward the costs of that second or third kid's education) isn't necessarily that high. A lot of families also go across the border to Hong Kong and have a second or third kid there, because Hong Kong isn't subject to the policy. I meet people literally every day who have more than one kid, and they're not fabulously wealthy or anything; solidly middle- or upper-middle-class, yes, but not dripping money (and some are actually quite poor, since rural areas tend to be the ones where the policy is suspended or unenforced). To be clear, the One Child Policy has helped create a number of problems for China, and it's obviously a bad policy just because forcing women and men to be sterilized after having a kid too many is completely reprehensible, but these issues don't exist in a vacuum. Japan doesn't have a One Child Policy, and they have virtually identical problems of needing a bigger workforce, et cetera. India doesn't have a similar policy but is experiencing the same, huge issues with an imbalance between male and female children. A lot of the issues stemming from the policy have as much to do with entrenched culture as they do with the policy itself.

[VintageJen1984]

This only works if the genders are actually balanced. As it now stands, there are 130 men to every 100 women in some regions of China. This is going to be a huge, huge problem not just in terms of fertility, but also in terms of society in general.

This brings to mind the FLDS "Lost Boys", only instead of one man:many wives meaning a normal number of boys in society is bad, one man:one wife means an unusually high number of boys is bad. Different causes, but probably a similar end result. Will those boys leave China the way the FLDS boys left the FLDS community?

Also this from the OP is kickass: "Freedom of speech doesn't mean that I will always feel comfortable." I wish I could force Americans to internalize it.