I've been following you for months now without an account, but I felt so compelled when I realized how much this has influenced my thinking about China. Every other blog or series about them has a macro approach about the economy or statistics or political history, but this day-to-day with your clarifying commentary puts things in an incredibly rich context.
Both males and females. Women in general are pretty upset about this, because the law doesn't guarantee they get an equal share of the inheritance at all, but they have to shoulder on an equal (or majority) share of the responsibility.
A 996 job is a schedule where you work 9AM to 9PM, 6 days a week. The upgrade is the 007 job :P
"The problem was never why people don’t want kids. I’ve never seen a group of people more enthusiastically, desperately wanting kids than Chinese people. Chinese people may want kids more than anyone else in the world."
This is interesting, because it's a common problem in fertility discussions. People consistently want WAY more kids than they actually have. Surveys of young women in Western countries pretty consistently find a desired number of children around 2.5. If the TFR of any Western country was anywhere near 2.5, we'd be living in a very different world right now.
The impression I got from the translated posts was that this was noticeably less true in China -- that people were much more resigned to "actively not wanting" kids. Anglophone social media has a lot of childfree-posting too, but it doesn't look as relentlessly "if you mention having a kid all the top comments are mocking you for being a terrible person".
I've generally parsed China's fertility crisis as a "conservatism paradox" -- you see the same thing in Southern and Eastern Europe, the richer parts of Latin America, and, increasingly, Southeast Asia. Countries that are more liberal, have egalitarian gender roles, etc. have a bunch of fertility problems, and conservative people are disproportionately the ones having kids...but conservative/sexist/etc countries that get rich are *totally screwed* on a whole different level. Countries that lack any real options for working mothers, fertility preservation, etc are doing way worse than countries where those things are possible. If "family vs career" becomes a forced choice, everyone ends up with the latter.
Right, I corrected myself later. This is a very disorganised post. It's not that people *want* kids. I don't think there's been much of a good sell on why you *should* want kids in China, other than to have someone take care of you in old age, and young people are increasingly like, "Working the hours I do, I'm never gonna make it to old age."
Wanting kids because, "It's fascinating to watch how a human being develops and matures." is a pretty new take that I've only seen once or twice, and that's why I have kids. (also because they're cute)
It's more correct to say that there's still a large demographic in China that feels like having kids is an obligated duty. Some of them, especially the younger generation, buck against that tradition on the internet. The voices railing against kids on the internet are so loud precisely because there's a lot of loud voices in real life pressuring them to have kids. And a lot more people would buckle to tradition than is currently doing so, if children weren't so unaffordable.
My take is that westerners have kids for the experience but in East Asia the experience sucks so they are less interested in having kids even in wealthy places like Seoul. The main thing that makes childhood unpleasant for both kids and parents is the brutally competitive and expensive education system. Involution is a useful concept here.
Japan did a lot to reduce pressure on kids, at least until high school, and has far better TFR compared to South Korea.
I think most of what's scaring people off is the infancy period, not the schooling period. Theoretically, the mindset in China is, "If you can't afford tutoring, you shouldn't bring a child into this world." And if you can afford tutoring, you just toss your kid into a 16+ hour school+tutoring combo, and you never get to see them, but it's not actively awful or anything either.
When people say they don't want kids, they're usually talking about things like not wanting to go through childbirth, not wanting to breastfeed, not wanting to constantly get up at night, not wanting to deal with hours of inconsolable screaming, etc.
Completely off-topic but I thought you might be interested in this list of Chinese imperial dynasties as Simpsons quotes: https://64.media.tumblr.com/45ce0f02874bd90e8a0fd0876a6665e6/53fc07947af91bed-9a/s1280x1920/83bed4c9fb4f6f3591cb9af768dd11096459e451.jpg
That is, legit, beautiful!
Omfg you guys have a maintenance of parents act too! Talk about culture transcending emigration.
:P I blame Dynastic China.
🥲
Hi!
I just wanted to say thanks for these posts.
I've been following you for months now without an account, but I felt so compelled when I realized how much this has influenced my thinking about China. Every other blog or series about them has a macro approach about the economy or statistics or political history, but this day-to-day with your clarifying commentary puts things in an incredibly rich context.
Awww~ This is such a sweet comment! Thank you!
Fascinating!
I have two questions. Are both males and females required to pay for their parents care, or only boys? Also, what is a 996 job?
Both males and females. Women in general are pretty upset about this, because the law doesn't guarantee they get an equal share of the inheritance at all, but they have to shoulder on an equal (or majority) share of the responsibility.
A 996 job is a schedule where you work 9AM to 9PM, 6 days a week. The upgrade is the 007 job :P
"The problem was never why people don’t want kids. I’ve never seen a group of people more enthusiastically, desperately wanting kids than Chinese people. Chinese people may want kids more than anyone else in the world."
This is interesting, because it's a common problem in fertility discussions. People consistently want WAY more kids than they actually have. Surveys of young women in Western countries pretty consistently find a desired number of children around 2.5. If the TFR of any Western country was anywhere near 2.5, we'd be living in a very different world right now.
The impression I got from the translated posts was that this was noticeably less true in China -- that people were much more resigned to "actively not wanting" kids. Anglophone social media has a lot of childfree-posting too, but it doesn't look as relentlessly "if you mention having a kid all the top comments are mocking you for being a terrible person".
I've generally parsed China's fertility crisis as a "conservatism paradox" -- you see the same thing in Southern and Eastern Europe, the richer parts of Latin America, and, increasingly, Southeast Asia. Countries that are more liberal, have egalitarian gender roles, etc. have a bunch of fertility problems, and conservative people are disproportionately the ones having kids...but conservative/sexist/etc countries that get rich are *totally screwed* on a whole different level. Countries that lack any real options for working mothers, fertility preservation, etc are doing way worse than countries where those things are possible. If "family vs career" becomes a forced choice, everyone ends up with the latter.
Right, I corrected myself later. This is a very disorganised post. It's not that people *want* kids. I don't think there's been much of a good sell on why you *should* want kids in China, other than to have someone take care of you in old age, and young people are increasingly like, "Working the hours I do, I'm never gonna make it to old age."
Wanting kids because, "It's fascinating to watch how a human being develops and matures." is a pretty new take that I've only seen once or twice, and that's why I have kids. (also because they're cute)
It's more correct to say that there's still a large demographic in China that feels like having kids is an obligated duty. Some of them, especially the younger generation, buck against that tradition on the internet. The voices railing against kids on the internet are so loud precisely because there's a lot of loud voices in real life pressuring them to have kids. And a lot more people would buckle to tradition than is currently doing so, if children weren't so unaffordable.
My take is that westerners have kids for the experience but in East Asia the experience sucks so they are less interested in having kids even in wealthy places like Seoul. The main thing that makes childhood unpleasant for both kids and parents is the brutally competitive and expensive education system. Involution is a useful concept here.
Japan did a lot to reduce pressure on kids, at least until high school, and has far better TFR compared to South Korea.
I think most of what's scaring people off is the infancy period, not the schooling period. Theoretically, the mindset in China is, "If you can't afford tutoring, you shouldn't bring a child into this world." And if you can afford tutoring, you just toss your kid into a 16+ hour school+tutoring combo, and you never get to see them, but it's not actively awful or anything either.
When people say they don't want kids, they're usually talking about things like not wanting to go through childbirth, not wanting to breastfeed, not wanting to constantly get up at night, not wanting to deal with hours of inconsolable screaming, etc.