The Cost of Success

Loughton_Monkey

michaels wrote: »

So half of the people on the tube in London are single children on that basis...

..... very possibly. But London isn't as bad as China.

michaels wrote: »

Back on topic, don't forget there is also a huge excess of men, for whatever reason a single child policy seems to produce more boys than girls.

As far as I know, it produces exactly 50/50 at conception. It's just that a lot of the females don't make it to birth. The 'weaker sex' perhaps, or at least that's what the locals would say after having their illegal scans to determine the sex.

Not being sexist, but would you prefer your pension scheme to be male or female?

michaels wrote: »

What to do with an extra 50m single men all spoilt and selfish?

I don't think the government 'recognises' the concept of being gay. Perhaps if they were to license, say, 50 million men to be gay, then "sorted!"

michaels wrote: »

Invasion of Taiwan sounds like the best way to stop them becoming politically agitated....

This would be very difficult to arrange, since 'within' China, it is well known that Taiwan is not a separate country, but an ordinary Province of China. Find me a Chinese textbook that says anything different!

The fact that you cannot fly there from China (except via Hong Kong) is never explained.

globalds

I think China faces the lesser of two evils.

Would you want to have the problems faced by half the third world of having a demographic that means the average age is about 17 and the growth rate needs to be above 5% just to keep pace with population growth ?

China has a population that is well educated and is a country that has comparative social cohesion.
Would I worry about getting old more if I lived in Egypt ? or Syria or Iraq?

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/16/egypt-population-explosion-social-unrest

China may well have over done it's family planning ..But the alternative is far far worse.

Generali

globalds wrote: »

China may well have over done it's family planning ..But the alternative is far far worse.

I think it's too early to call.

Anyway you raise a false dichotomy. The choice isn't between 10 kids and 1 kid it's between 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 or 10 kids.

globalds

Generali wrote: »

I think it's too early to call.

Anyway you raise a false dichotomy. The choice isn't between 10 kids and 1 kid it's between 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 or 10 kids.

I accept it looks like they picked the wrong number .
I still applaud their attempt to recognise that uncontrolled population growth would pose a far quicker route to disaster.

The empirical evidence seems to show that the simple fact of educating your population especially the females does far more to reduce birth rates and those having children start at an older age.

My money would be on China managing it's population problem better than many other places .

Generali

globalds wrote: »

I accept it looks like they picked the wrong number .
I still applaud their attempt to recognise that uncontrolled population growth would pose a far quicker route to disaster.

The empirical evidence seems to show that the simple fact of educating your population especially the females does far more to reduce birth rates and those having children start at an older age.

My money would be on China managing it's population problem better than many other places .

Birth rates are falling access most of the world as women get education.

I agree that China has a decent chance of doing this as well as possible however the scale of the problem is huge as is everything to do with China. Their saving grace may be that Japan is going first and is getting some interesting technology solutions in place. Contrary to popular belief I think Japan is managing the population changes well at the moment (e.g. look at GDP per capita rather than nominal GDP).