The Chinese Baby Shortage
I want you to think about your sister. Or your brother.
Got it?
This is an exercise you cannot do t do in China. Because out of a billion people … practically nobody has a brother … or sister.
For decades the communist country had a one-child-per-family policy…. and now… everybody there… is an only child.
At the beginning, it was a draconian measure to control the population struggling to feed itself.
But decades later now that there’s enough food…. they need more young people. Soon China will be completely overwhelmed in paying pensions and benefits to an aging population. And they need a much bigger next generation.
A one-child policy became two children… and then three…. but while the government urges its citizens to be fruitful and multiply…. hundreds of millions of Chinese people are saying …”nah.”
Young Chinese couples consider it too expensive to have children in today’s economic climate. And perhaps the bigger determining factor … is culture.
Y’know how you have fond memories of hangin’ out with your sibling? These are cherished memories Chinese people don’t have. Each of them only has fond memories of being an only child.
So the government is offering ever-increasing benefits.. even -for the first time - giving money to unmarried women who get pregnant… hoping to create siblings. But it’s not working. The birthrate remains flat…. in a country of a billion people… where nobody’s a brother… and not a sister among them.