China to Allow Couples to Have Three Children to Boost Birthrate

bloomberg.com

12 points·ordinaryman··6 comments

It is really fascinating how rapidly society has transformed on this issue. I have elderly relatives who are still parroting the notion that anywhere outside the West is having too many kids to have a stable population and that issue has been solved so well that countries are doing all they can to have more.

> that issue has been solved

It depends on what you consider the issue to be. If anyone is both an environmentalist/conservationist and honest about it, a reduction in population would be a good outcome for biodiversity and would permit rewilding land currently used for agriculture, housing, commerce, etc. In the context of our current economic systems, a declining population is a disaster waiting to happen.

Increasing education, living standards and changing preferences create forces beyond government control. Just allowing and supporting more children is probably not enough.

>China’s Population on Track to Peak Before 2025 as Births Drop

Almost exactly at the same time as Taiwan's population is expected to peak. South Korean and Japanese populations are already in decline.

Some people may have considered limiting children to one per family to be "beyond government control", so there's probably some good sci-fi to be written/lived through on the topic of what a totalitarian government will get up to when it's realised that more children are "needed", but that most parents won't volunteer to provide this service.

At this point it seems to be more of a problem of changing the cultural norms that were created by over 30 years of a one child policy but I guess you have to start somewhere.

Not surprising, as the average age is quite high (39) and the lack of a properly funded retirement pension

Reply on news.ycombinator.com