Taiwan population declines for the 1st time

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

Fertility rates decreases as a society's wealth increases, so as the 3rd world develops, there will be a double whammy, with fewer babies born in immigration-prone societies, and fewer of those kids will want to emigrate since they will be living in more prosperous societies.

I think you're overlooking a key phase of the development of the 3rd world. Massive rural->urban displacement happens after birthrates crash but before a country truly becomes developed. It's happening right now in China, it'll peak in a few decades in India, and it'll happen sometime or another in Africa. It isn't like people are actually staying in their hometowns, so why not encourage them to go a few thousand miles further and immigrate. Frankly, I think the U.S. missed a huge opportunity in China on this. If people are moving from Sichuan and Yunnan to Shanghai, why not encourage rural China->California immigration instead? It's basically the same principle. We still offer a higher quality of life and bigger economic opportunities, after all. Hopefully we won't make the same mistake in South Asia.

[jaichind]

Well, either homophobic or anti-feminist.

Well the are many impossible trinities in the world.  The one that is apt here is

Gender Equity in terms of results
Hypergamy
Monogamy

You can only have at most 2 out of the 3. 

This is why I keep on pushing for polygamy as the solution.  The behavior of feminist in terms of their choice of mates seems to indicate they are not willing to lower standards  so if they want the first two then the last one has to be out.

1 and 3 are the only acceptable answers for a society aspiring to republican (in the small "r" sense) ideals. Promoting polygamy leaves you will a pool of angry, single poor young men which is a perfect recipe for violence and crime.

For women to give up 2 would be quite a drastic change from millions of years of likely biological induced behavior.  I am totally open to the possibility that hypergamy could stems from social factors versus biological factors.  For 1 and 3 to work simultaneously would require a "New Women" much like Socialism of the last century would require a "New Man" to work.  I am eager to see and learn in the coming decades on mating choices women make in Western progressive societies to see if hypergamy has social or biological roots.

[jaichind]

The type of immigration policy on ROC is mostly a combination of guest workers from SE Asia much like Turks in FRG in the 1960s plus immigration via marriage.  The marriage route are mostly Mainland Chinese (which I do not consider immigration anyway since PRC and ROC are part of One China), Vietnamese, and some Koreans/Chinese.  Recently there has been some Ukrainian brides that have showed up.

All things equal the immigrant (usually wife) and children from these marriages have been having a hard time adopting.  It is easiest for those from Mainland China, harder for non-Chinese Orientals and the hardest for non-Orientals.  Because of this I doubt the marriage route will be that many in numbers in the medium run. 

Why Ukrainians?

From what I hear or see on the media they mostly operate as mail order brides from Eastern Europe with a focus on Ukraine given the poor state of the economy there.  In the early 1990s it was the Mainland China, in the early 2000s it was Vietnam, now it is Ukraine.

[Samof94]

The type of immigration policy on ROC is mostly a combination of guest workers from SE Asia much like Turks in FRG in the 1960s plus immigration via marriage.  The marriage route are mostly Mainland Chinese (which I do not consider immigration anyway since PRC and ROC are part of One China), Vietnamese, and some Koreans/Chinese.  Recently there has been some Ukrainian brides that have showed up.

All things equal the immigrant (usually wife) and children from these marriages have been having a hard time adopting.  It is easiest for those from Mainland China, harder for non-Chinese Orientals and the hardest for non-Orientals.  Because of this I doubt the marriage route will be that many in numbers in the medium run. 

Why Ukrainians?

From what I hear or see on the media they mostly operate as mail order brides from Eastern Europe with a focus on Ukraine given the poor state of the economy there.  In the early 1990s it was the Mainland China, in the early 2000s it was Vietnam, now it is Ukraine.

That makes a lot of sense.

[CumbrianLefty]

The type of immigration policy on ROC is mostly a combination of guest workers from SE Asia much like Turks in FRG in the 1960s plus immigration via marriage.  The marriage route are mostly Mainland Chinese (which I do not consider immigration anyway since PRC and ROC are part of One China), Vietnamese, and some Koreans/Chinese.  Recently there has been some Ukrainian brides that have showed up.

All things equal the immigrant (usually wife) and children from these marriages have been having a hard time adopting.  It is easiest for those from Mainland China, harder for non-Chinese Orientals and the hardest for non-Orientals.  Because of this I doubt the marriage route will be that many in numbers in the medium run.  

Why Ukrainians?

From what I hear or see on the media they mostly operate as mail order brides from Eastern Europe with a focus on Ukraine given the poor state of the economy there.  In the early 1990s it was the Mainland China, in the early 2000s it was Vietnam, now it is Ukraine.

Don't forget the Philippines.

[jaichind]

From what I hear or see on the media they mostly operate as mail order brides from Eastern Europe with a focus on Ukraine given the poor state of the economy there.  In the early 1990s it was the Mainland China, in the early 2000s it was Vietnam, now it is Ukraine.

Don't forget the Philippines.

Anecdotally I just do not read about, on ROC media, that as many Philippines wife imports as Vietnam back in the 2000s or even today.  For example in the 2018 ROC city/county assembly elections there was an Vietnamese women who married into ROC that ran on a platform of helping fellow Vietnamese wives.  She did not get that many votes but at least you hear of these stories.  Not such or similar stories on Philippines wives.  Logically that would make sense.   Regardless of what took place after 1945 historically Vietnam has much greater historical cultural ties with China and I would count them in the Confucian sphere so their willingness to move to and ability to adopt to the local ROC Chinese culture would be a lot greater. 

Frankly these days you do not hear as much about Vietnamese women marrying into ROC as it was a decade ago.  You hear a lot more about them marrying into Guangdong and Guangshi provinces.

[Estrella]

Well, either homophobic or anti-feminist.

Well the are many impossible trinities in the world.  The one that is apt here is

Gender Equity in terms of results
Hypergamy
Monogamy

You can only have at most 2 out of the 3. 

This is why I keep on pushing for polygamy as the solution.  The behavior of feminist in terms of their choice of mates seems to indicate they are not willing to lower standards  so if they want the first two then the last one has to be out.

1 and 3 are the only acceptable answers for a society aspiring to republican (in the small "r" sense) ideals. Promoting polygamy leaves you will a pool of angry, single poor young men which is a perfect recipe for violence and crime.

Which is why, if one wishes to ignore such basic things as human psychology in order to present simple but utterly cloudcuckoolanderist solutions to extremely complicated societal problems, one should consider that polyandry would be a better choice instead - especially in countries like China that have problems with a surplus of men in younger generations.

[Kingpoleon]

Which is why, if one wishes to ignore such basic things as human psychology in order to present simple but utterly cloudcuckoolanderist solutions to extremely complicated societal problems, one should consider that polyandry would be a better choice instead - especially in countries like China that have problems with a surplus of men in younger generations.

Another practical problem here is that a society which adopts either polyandry or polygyny will (presumably) see an unsustainable population growth or decline, and the resulting solution would be the opposite of the one already in place. Polyandry and polygyny might be “practical” solutions in the short term - such as extraterrestrial colonies needing quick growth or decade long space missions with limited resources - but, in the long run, a transition away from polygamy will be necessary to reach population growth rates sustainable under standard resource consumption.

I also concur as to the serious ethical questions involved with “encouraging” such marriages.

[Mopsus]

Fertility rates decreases as a society's wealth increases, so as the 3rd world develops, there will be a double whammy, with fewer babies born in immigration-prone societies, and fewer of those kids will want to emigrate since they will be living in more prosperous societies.

I think you're overlooking a key phase of the development of the 3rd world. Massive rural->urban displacement happens after birthrates crash but before a country truly becomes developed. It's happening right now in China, it'll peak in a few decades in India, and it'll happen sometime or another in Africa. It isn't like people are actually staying in their hometowns, so why not encourage them to go a few thousand miles further and immigrate. Frankly, I think the U.S. missed a huge opportunity in China on this. If people are moving from Sichuan and Yunnan to Shanghai, why not encourage rural China->California immigration instead? It's basically the same principle. We still offer a higher quality of life and bigger economic opportunities, after all. Hopefully we won't make the same mistake in South Asia.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t that massive rural-urban shift that’s been happening in China a result of industrialization? In other words, I don’t know that there’s much Walmart and Dollar General can do with tens of millions of uprooted Indian farmers.

[Former President tack50]

Since we are discussing the topic, tbh a thought I've sometimes thought about is that, given human beings are mammals (ie human women get pregnant instead of just putting an egg and forgetting about it like say, reptiles do); if you wanted to maximize birth rates the "proper" ratio of men to women really would not be 1:1 or even particularly close to it; but rather something much closer to say, 10 women for every man or something ridiculous like that; since you know, a single woman can only have a child every 9 months at most while a single man can make several women pregnant in those 9 months.

I suppose a world were there are 9 or 10 times more women than men would make for an interesting sci-fi story or whatever. And Atlas would still find a way to be somewhere around 90% men

Keeping on this topic, I remember when I was like 8 or 10 years old and some magazine I read essencially said that "men are diminishing and will no longer exist by the year 3000" or whatever (based off something about the Y chromosome being recessive or something along those lines, can't remember the exact explanation). Which even to 10 year old me sounded like an interesting story and also something that made no sense

That also said humans circa 3000 AD (could have been even further in the future) would all be bald so uh, definitely not based on science or anything, but still a fun read.

[Хahar 🤔]

DC Al Fine's posts in this thread are entirely correct. It's easy to conjure up notions of fanatics having ten kids in order to avoid confronting reality, which is that there is a clear gap between the number of children that adults want on average and the number of children that adults actually have on average. I'm less focused on long-term demographic trends than others here seem to be; the issue as I see it is that wanting a child (either a first child or an additional child) but not being able to for financial reasons is an awful thing from the standpoint of quality of life, and the purpose of government should be to minimize it.

Contemporary capitalism may not be intentionally anti-natalist, but it would be hard to do a better job of lowering birth rates intentionally than capitalism does on its own. This is the product of a society that doesn't see the desire to have children as worthy of value and has consequently imposed unconscionable economic barriers on doing so.

[Estrella]

Since we are discussing the topic, tbh a thought I've sometimes thought about is that, given human beings are mammals (ie human women get pregnant instead of just putting an egg and forgetting about it like say, reptiles do); if you wanted to maximize birth rates the "proper" ratio of men to women really would not be 1:1 or even particularly close to it; but rather something much closer to say, 10 women for every man or something ridiculous like that; since you know, a single woman can only have a child every 9 months at most while a single man can make several women pregnant in those 9 months.

I suppose a world were there are 9 or 10 times more women than men would make for an interesting sci-fi story or whatever. And Atlas would still find a way to be somewhere around 90% men

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

Fertility rates decreases as a society's wealth increases, so as the 3rd world develops, there will be a double whammy, with fewer babies born in immigration-prone societies, and fewer of those kids will want to emigrate since they will be living in more prosperous societies.

I think you're overlooking a key phase of the development of the 3rd world. Massive rural->urban displacement happens after birthrates crash but before a country truly becomes developed. It's happening right now in China, it'll peak in a few decades in India, and it'll happen sometime or another in Africa. It isn't like people are actually staying in their hometowns, so why not encourage them to go a few thousand miles further and immigrate. Frankly, I think the U.S. missed a huge opportunity in China on this. If people are moving from Sichuan and Yunnan to Shanghai, why not encourage rural China->California immigration instead? It's basically the same principle. We still offer a higher quality of life and bigger economic opportunities, after all. Hopefully we won't make the same mistake in South Asia.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t that massive rural-urban shift that’s been happening in China a result of industrialization? In other words, I don’t know that there’s much Walmart and Dollar General can do with tens of millions of uprooted Indian farmers.

Like with development and demographic transition in Europe, America, and Democratic East Asia, the biggest catalyst for development is a rural population boom and initial agricultural mechanization producing a massive population surplus in rural areas. Thus, unskilled rural workers leave for the cities and take whatever jobs are available--usually in emerging industrial sector. So it's more that a rural population surplus creates industrialization instead of the other way around.

Regardless, most immigration booms to the United States have come from unskilled rural labor, so I'm not too concerned. Who came from Ireland? Poor farmers from Western Ireland. Who came from Italy? Poor farmers from Sicily. Who came from Mexico? Poor farmers from Michoacan and Jalisco. It wasn't like the middle class from Dublin and Turin and Monterrey wanted to leave. While the nature of our economy has changed over the decades, there's a lot of evidence to think young, unskilled workers can become incredibly economically productive members of American society--especially compounded over generations.

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

DC Al Fine's posts in this thread are entirely correct. It's easy to conjure up notions of fanatics having ten kids in order to avoid confronting reality, which is that there is a clear gap between the number of children that adults want on average and the number of children that adults actually have on average. I'm less focused on long-term demographic trends than others here seem to be; the issue as I see it is that wanting a child (either a first child or an additional child) but not being able to for financial reasons is an awful thing from the standpoint of quality of life, and the purpose of government should be to minimize it.

Contemporary capitalism may not be intentionally anti-natalist, but it would be hard to do a better job of lowering birth rates intentionally than capitalism does on its own. This is the product of a society that doesn't see the desire to have children as worthy of value and has consequently imposed unconscionable economic barriers on doing so.

I'm not sure that this is as bad as you think it is. First off, we should be obsessed with long term demographic trends and if the first world is producing >2.1 children per woman, we're going to be dealing with some serious environmental problems. And this is coming from a devout anti-Malthusian.

Second, it's very important to consider what exactly is in the polling DC cites. Basically it's saying that in a world free of constraints--where everyone found a spouse they love and have all the money they need--they would choose to have more children. This isn't surprising. I'd speculate they'd also want a more important job and a bigger home and more vacations and fewer chores. Unfortunately, the world is a place of scarcity so people decide what to give up--apparently including 0.5 theoretical children. Now, you might say to me (and you'd be completely right) "Blairite you capitalist pig, why would you reduce my children to applied microeconomics?" But I really don't see it as some great injustice or societal failing that people have 25% fewer children than they'd like in the abstract because they decided they'd rather have something else instead.

Now, if you think that the problem is that some people are too poor to have even a single child, then the dilemma isn't how to get people to have more kids but how to get poor people more money. Which we can do, but then it's up to people to decide whether the most useful thing they can do with their money is to have more kids. Either way, I'm fundamentally uncomfortable with the idea that the government deciding having more kids is fundamentally a good choice and therefore essentially making those with fewer kids (irrespective of wealth) subsidize those with more kids (irrespective of wealth).

[Mopsus]

Like with development and demographic transition in Europe, America, and Democratic East Asia, the biggest catalyst for development is a rural population boom and initial agricultural mechanization producing a massive population surplus in rural areas. Thus, unskilled rural workers leave for the cities and take whatever jobs are available--usually in emerging industrial sector. So it's more that a rural population surplus creates industrialization instead of the other way around.

Regardless, most immigration booms to the United States have come from unskilled rural labor, so I'm not too concerned. Who came from Ireland? Poor farmers from Western Ireland. Who came from Italy? Poor farmers from Sicily. Who came from Mexico? Poor farmers from Michoacan and Jalisco. It wasn't like the middle class from Dublin and Turin and Monterrey wanted to leave. While the nature of our economy has changed over the decades, there's a lot of evidence to think young, unskilled workers can become incredibly economically productive members of American society--especially compounded over generations.

What you seem to be implying here is that if all Latin American migrant farm workers were to disappear tomorrow, there would be no resulting labor shortages in the agricultural sector, as immigrants create demand in the sectors in which they work, rather than responding to demand that already exists. Is that correct?

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

Like with development and demographic transition in Europe, America, and Democratic East Asia, the biggest catalyst for development is a rural population boom and initial agricultural mechanization producing a massive population surplus in rural areas. Thus, unskilled rural workers leave for the cities and take whatever jobs are available--usually in emerging industrial sector. So it's more that a rural population surplus creates industrialization instead of the other way around.

Regardless, most immigration booms to the United States have come from unskilled rural labor, so I'm not too concerned. Who came from Ireland? Poor farmers from Western Ireland. Who came from Italy? Poor farmers from Sicily. Who came from Mexico? Poor farmers from Michoacan and Jalisco. It wasn't like the middle class from Dublin and Turin and Monterrey wanted to leave. While the nature of our economy has changed over the decades, there's a lot of evidence to think young, unskilled workers can become incredibly economically productive members of American society--especially compounded over generations.

What you seem to be implying here is that if all Latin American migrant farm workers were to disappear tomorrow, there would be no resulting labor shortages in the agricultural sector, as immigrants create demand in the sectors in which they work, rather than responding to demand that already exists. Is that correct?

No? There certainly would be. I'm just saying that 1. the biggest reason people choose to leave undeveloped rural areas is because of a labor surplus following a population boom and 2. the American economy has room for a lot of unskilled migrants.

[Mopsus]

Like with development and demographic transition in Europe, America, and Democratic East Asia, the biggest catalyst for development is a rural population boom and initial agricultural mechanization producing a massive population surplus in rural areas. Thus, unskilled rural workers leave for the cities and take whatever jobs are available--usually in emerging industrial sector. So it's more that a rural population surplus creates industrialization instead of the other way around.

Regardless, most immigration booms to the United States have come from unskilled rural labor, so I'm not too concerned. Who came from Ireland? Poor farmers from Western Ireland. Who came from Italy? Poor farmers from Sicily. Who came from Mexico? Poor farmers from Michoacan and Jalisco. It wasn't like the middle class from Dublin and Turin and Monterrey wanted to leave. While the nature of our economy has changed over the decades, there's a lot of evidence to think young, unskilled workers can become incredibly economically productive members of American society--especially compounded over generations.

What you seem to be implying here is that if all Latin American migrant farm workers were to disappear tomorrow, there would be no resulting labor shortages in the agricultural sector, as immigrants create demand in the sectors in which they work, rather than responding to demand that already exists. Is that correct?

No? There certainly would be. I'm just saying that 1. the biggest reason people choose to leave undeveloped rural areas is because of a labor surplus following a population boom and 2. the American economy has room for a lot of unskilled migrants.

Both of which are at this point unproven assertions. I mean, I’m sure that advances in agriculture in the 19th and 20th centuries caused rural overpopulation relative to what the job market could support, but the main reason cities have been more attractive is industrialization, which is pretty much spent in the West. Not that we couldn’t claw back Nike and Apple factories if we abolished labor, environmental, and consumer protection standards, and with mass immigration we could even get people willing to work for pennies on the dollar. But that totally undercuts the standard of living argument you used in the beginning.

[Хahar 🤔]

Second, it's very important to consider what exactly is in the polling DC cites. Basically it's saying that in a world free of constraints--where everyone found a spouse they love and have all the money they need--they would choose to have more children. This isn't surprising. I'd speculate they'd also want a more important job and a bigger home and more vacations and fewer chores.

It's obviously true that people should have all of those things. It is absolutely wrong to equate them to the desire to have a family, which is the most fundamental desire short of physical material needs. This is the desire that underpins all of human society and it's absurd to equate it to wanting "a more important job" or whatever.

Unfortunately, the world is a place of scarcity so people decide what to give up--apparently including 0.5 theoretical children. Now, you might say to me (and you'd be completely right) "Blairite you capitalist pig, why would you reduce my children to applied microeconomics?" But I really don't see it as some great injustice or societal failing that people have 25% fewer children than they'd like in the abstract because they decided they'd rather have something else instead.

This is equivalent to claiming that when people die because they can't afford medical treatment, the reason is because the world is a place of scarcity. People who can't have a child because they can't afford it aren't making a free choice any more than are people who don't receive life-prolonging medical treatment because they can't afford it. The problem here isn't "scarcity"; the problem is an economic system that has no interest in the well-being of normal people, which is the problem that it's the purpose of government to resolve.

Now, if you think that the problem is that some people are too poor to have even a single child, then the dilemma isn't how to get people to have more kids but how to get poor people more money. Which we can do, but then it's up to people to decide whether the most useful thing they can do with their money is to have more kids. Either way, I'm fundamentally uncomfortable with the idea that the government deciding having more kids is fundamentally a good choice and therefore essentially making those with fewer kids (irrespective of wealth) subsidize those with more kids (irrespective of wealth).

The purpose is for people to have the sort of life they want. Money can help with that, yes. For the vast majority of people, leading the life they want involves having children. Public schools are an example of those with less kids subsidizing those with more kids. Paid parental leave is also an example of those with less kids subsidizing those with more kids. Everywhere you look, any time there is a public program of any kind, there is a subsidy passing from one group to another. That's the price we pay for living in a society.