China's Population has Begun to Decline


Rural to urban migration is one of the biggest contributors to the direction of societies. Children go from being economic assets to the family to being economic liabilities. Using the language of economics they stop being producer goods and start to compete with other consumer goods. Now it has happened in China. It's population has begun to fall. 

While this is good news for the planet earth, its population will continue to rise for many more years. Then, it is predicted to slowly fall. Many time predictions fail to materialize but rural to urban migration seems like a human pattern. It was even the case with early humans who made a living growing their own food. There was always danger, from competitive humans and/or animals preying on humans. The solution was to live in groups that defended together but going out to tend crops when it was safe. Cities were what allowed human populations to thrive. 

We know China had a two-child policy for quite a while. Smaller numbers of children allowed the economy to have more workers. Now, that policy has been abandoned but couples are having fewer children because of their higher and urban standard of living. 

In many countries including China, Japan and the U.S. the lower birth rate presents economic problems. There are more old people to support and relatively fewer in working age to support them. The only solutions to this are higher taxes and/or lower standards of living for retired people like me. More children are a drag on the economy as are more old people. 

Working all this out in any society will never be easy. Economists have a generalization; everyone wants more. It is stated a bit less crudely in an economics textbook. There you will find the phrase, "Human wants are insatiable."

The economic pie will never have pieces large enough to satisfy everyone. Trying to negotiate through politics how much or how little is something every generation has to work through. Even China, which is not a democracy, will need to have some level of public agreement on how to do this.

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