My fault; I should have said “left more or less to their own devices BY THE GOVERNMENT.”
What I’m saying is that the government isn’t likely to shoulder the burden of taking care of all the old folks- it’ll be their families’ responsibility.
That was the case in Europe, too. Until the Industrial Revolution.
See:
[This Day In HISTORY
February 01, 1902
Cixi Outlaws Foot Binding](http://www.historychannel.com.au/classroom/day-in-history/409/cixi-outlaws-foot-binding)
Problems will be due to lack of resources coupled with a credit crisis and long-term effects of global warming.
I teach English to children in China. The “one child” policy isn’t working exactly as expected; there are a LOT of exceptions to the policy (lots of twins, families with generally low birthrates get an exemption, families pay bribes or fines but ultimately have 2 or 3 kids, etc.). Also, despite all the horror stories about female infanticides and adopting out their daughters so they can have a son to carry on the family name, the schools I’ve seen to have roughly equal numbers of girls and boys.
Families who have a girl but would kind of rather have a boy are subject to great social scorn for acting on their impulse to do anything other than raise their daughters. The one side effect of the policy that I’ve seen is that I have a great deal of trouble explaining what words like “aunt,” “uncle” and “cousin” mean to kids who typically have none of these.
I work in a really big city and don’t know what goes on in the rural areas, FWIW.
The “no girls” thing really only exists in rural areas, probably because sons there provide labor for working people. In urban areas and big cities, there isn’t much of a preference for gender; if anything, I’ve heard more people say that they would rather have a girl than a boy, as they think girls tend to be less rowdy, and are more diligent in school.
Anyway, I don’t think China is going to ‘collapse’. It certainly isn’t the only country with a huge population of elders (see Japan). There may be political turbulence eventually. What this might lead to, I don’t know. I don’t see China seguing well into a functioning democracy. Chinese people are extremely apathetic about political issues. They consider corruption to be a necessary way of life. For example, my parents have bribed a lot of people in China, including bribing the daycare I went to to get me adequate/better care. If China really became a ‘democracy’, it would probably be a pretty corrupt one.
If that were true, wouldn’t they still have an emperor?
Racial minorities have exceptions. Certain religious groups (usually affiliated with racial minorities) have exceptions. Two one-child parents are an exception. Just recently I’ve been told (but have not verified) that one one-child parent makes the couple eligible for an exception. And of course you’ve always been able to buy your way out of the policy, and in my provence, it’s a quite reasonable one-time fee. Despite being a non-federal system, there’s a lot of leeway towards the rules in different areas, and so while one can pay a small one-time fine in Jiangsu, other places have been known to forcefully abort.
Then there’s this: amongst the middle class (which is larger than the US population), the biggest reason to have a single kid isn’t the law; it’s economics. Chinese are absolutely fucking crazy when it comes to raising their kids. Aside from prestigious schools, they have to consider buying houses for their male offspring, so that they can attract a mate and continue the family name. And other stuff. It’s expensive.
This is true. Recently (this year), the policy has been changed in a number of areas to allow couples with just one one-child parent to have a second child. I don’t recall if there is a requirement for the couple’s first child to be female.
IIRC, that’s known as the “social compensation fee”. Basically, it means the couple has to pay a tax to have a child who doesn’t fall under the scheme. I live in Beijing now and last year, I lived in Maoming. Both cities had, it seems to me, plenty of two- and three-child families.d
Supposedly, the forced abortions are illegal. As with every other law in this country, how it is implemented or even implemented at all depends on a number of factors, not the least of which is how the local cadres perceive how the next higher level cadres evaluate the former.
Yep. Just a few weeks ago, the national news was running stories on how women won’t marry a man until he has a home of his own and how much the home and the wedding hall cost. It’s incredibly expensive.
I don’t care how traditional a society China is - sooner or later traditions are going to change. Industrial revolutions leave no survivors.
??? There are lots of institutions alive and well in the world that existed before the industrial revolution. Some industrialized countries still have monarchs. (It seems bloody absurd, but there you have it!)
The industrial revolution was, most certainly, a titanic, massive, catastrophic upheaval. But…some traditions still prevail. Religion is still a big deal.