Reflections | Why China shouldn’t worry about its first population drop in decades: it has fallen much further before, and always bounced back
- China’s population fell in 2022 for the first time since the 1960s, and while more people means a larger workforce and GDP, the Chinese shouldn’t be too anxious
- War, famine and disease have caused millions of deaths in recent Chinese history, but the population as always bounced back and gone on to grow further
The persistently low birth rates in some Asian countries have prompted their governments to spend profligate amounts of money to reverse the trend.
South Korea has spent more than US$200 billion over the past 16 years to boost its population, while Japan has pledged to set aside US$150 billion of the country’s budget for child-related policies.
I’ve never had any desire to be a parent, and I’m glad I live in a society where voluntary childlessness isn’t seen as a moral defect.
Personal disinclinations aside, I’m not sure I want to bring a child into an overpopulated world of environmental degradation and depleted resources, where bellicose nations with extinction-level weapons threaten the human race with yet another world war.
Continuing the family line and leaving my genetic legacy to future generations isn’t all that important to me. Each of us have four biological grandparents, eight great-grandparents, 16 great-great-grandparents … going back a few hundred years you’ll have thousands of ancestors.