Despite almost three decades of the one-child policy, the total population will reach 1.5 billion by 2033, well in advance of previous estimates of 2050...
Between now and 2016, the growth in the number of people of working age will increase by 10 million a year, meaning that much of China's remarkable economic growth will be taken up simply with finding them jobs rather than making them richer.
And then, in an extraordinary reversal as the effects of the one-child policy play through the generations, the population will age rapidly, so that by the 2040s the country will have 430 million people over the age of 60, compared with just 143 million now, relying on ever fewer workers to provide them with their livelihood.......despite a ban on selective abortions, the discrepancy is getting worse. The national statistics show that 118 boys were registered for every 100 girls in 2005, up from 110 in 2000. In two southern provinces, Guangdong and Hainan, the figure had reached 130.
It's a little hard to be optimistic about how this is all going to work out for China. Maybe an excess of cheap labour continues to be good for a while for the West, until civil unrest kicks in.
Oh wow - that IS getting worse, on all fronts, particularly the gender imbalance.
ReplyDeleteThere are good reasons why, left to nature, women generally make up 51% of the population.
Those figures are plain scary, even if not globally - although the repercussions will be felt globally - ie, Chinese aging, jobs, and gender.
I find it incredibly sad that an entire, and vast, population will have, one imagines, far less fulfilling and happy lives because they place no value on baby girls.
Naturally, I've always felt very deep sadness and anger at the disposal of female fetuses and babies, as so vigorously practiced in India and China (the Indian figures are highly disturbing too, given their supposed modernization as a country).
The future for the generations ahead that will live with the results of ugly cultural values is difficult to imagine, but we can be very certain that it will permeate everything, absolutely everything.