China's Population Could Shrink to Half by 2100
scientificamerican.com
scientificamerican.com
"Consider another figure that should haunt leaders: 1.7. That is the number of children that, on average, Chinese women of child-bearing age call ideal. China’s ideal is one of the world’s lowest, far below the number given in Japan or South Korea. Chinese women born after 1995 want the fewest of all: 48.3% of them told the Chinese General Social Survey of 2021 that they desire one or no children. There is growing evidence that such attitudes are powerfully shaped by how people, and those around them, experienced the one-child policy."
https://www.scmp.com/economy/economic-indicators/article/324... | https://archive.today/EXI8u
Seems fairly straightforward to predict based on a total fertility rate of 1-1.05 (2022-current) and forwarding looking social/cultural cues. TFR won't get to 0, but based on all available evidence across the world, it isn't going back up either.
It is going back up, it's just very unclear on which timescale. Will it go back to the replacement rate in 20, 50, 100, 1000 years?
Cultures/genes which favor procreation will ... procreate, and become more and more represented. It's possible that in a 1000 years, most of the world will be from orthodox jews / amish / conservative muslims etc. at which point the TFR will be back up.
And this is when we leave it to the nature. China as an autoritarian state has a lot of tools at their disposal. They can make motherhood more desirable.
Based on what? Are our population models from the 1990s that far off?
“Many of the UN’s historical projections – even as far back as the 1960s – have been remarkably close to the truth.”
That’s for the world population on relatively short time frames (20 to 30 years in the future), though.
Things get harder if you take smaller groups of people or look further ahead.
That’s why, if you look at the UN reports, you’ll see a huge spread in predictions for 2100.
https://www.un.org/development/desa/pd/sites/www.un.org.deve... for example predicts a world population of between (eyeballing the chart) 9 and 12 billion in 2100, and why this article says could and not will.
That's one generation. Population models are generally pretty good for two, so out to ~2075 from today. World models are easier because you don't have to model immigration.