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Demographic Crisis in China

Underpopulation in China

China ranks 78^th in the world for population density, where 1^st is the highest population density.  Some countries that are more densely populated than China:  Germany (55^th), the UK (51^st), and Netherlands (28^th).[i]

China ranks 81^st in real population density (taking into account arable land), where 1^st has the highest real population density.  Countries that are more densely populated (in real population density) than China: the UK (74^th), Switzerland (52^nd), and the Netherlands (47^th).[ii]

Before the One-Child Policy, fertility levels dropped by more than 50% from 5.8 children per woman in 1970 to 2.7 in 1979.  On the other hand, during the 1980s, when the One-Child Policy was then recently implemented, fertility levels hardly changed.[iii]

Even after adjusting for possible underreporting, China's current fertility level is likely around 1.5 to 1.6 children per couple, over 20% below the necessary replacement level.[iv]

Rising consumption is no longer a concern, but is actually desired as a way to generate market demand and to propel further economic growth.[v]

While China’s per capita arable land shrank by about 25% between 1984 and 2008, per capita production of main agricultural products actually increased as each unit of arable land produced more food.[vi]

Energy consumption and population growth are not related very closely.  From 2000 to 2008, China’s total energy consumption doubled, despite the population only expanding by 5%.[vii]

Affluence, not population, drives growth in consumption and energy usage.  Between 1990 and 2007, petroleum consumption in China increased by 189 percent, natural gas by 375 percent, and electricity by 424 percent. During the same period, population size grew by only 16 percent. CO2 emission since the mid 1990s increased by over 50 percent in one decade, while population growth during the same time period was only 8.5 percent.[viii]

The number of new students in Chinese elementary schools dropped from 25.3 million in 1995 to 16.7 million in 2008.[ix]

Between 1990 and 2008, 60% of Chinese elementary schools were closed down.[x]

Fertility Rate in China, 1960-2008[xi]

Rapidly Ageing Population in China

China’s elderly population is 11% of the population.  By 2050, it will be 31% of the population.[xii]

This means that by 2050 China will have only 2.2 people of working age for every one person over 65.  In comparison, Japan, the oldest country in the world now, has 2.6.[xiii]

An estimated 150 million families have only one child, accounting for a third of all Chinese households.[xiv]

By comparison the U.S. has 78 million families total.[xv]

The proportion of people aged 60-64 rose from 7.6% of the population in 1982 to 10.5% in 2000.  For those above 65, their proportion rose from 4.9% to 7.1% in the same time frame.[xvi]

Between 2005 and 2030, the number of people aged 65 and above will likely more than double in size, from about 100 million to 235 million or more.[xvii]

Chinese elderly aged 60 and older, will increase from 165 million now to 240 million in 2020, and over 340 million by 2030, accounting for 25% of the total population.[xviii]

After 2025, the population will start to shrink.[xix]

The share of its population aged 65 and over will rise to 14% in 2025, 20% in 2035, and more than 24% in 2050 (reaching a peak of more than 28% in 2064).[xx]

By 2040, 40% of all Chinese females aged 60 and above will have only one child, and by 2050, this number will increase to 50%.[xxi]

The annual suicide rate among those aged 70 to 74 in cities surged above 33 per 100,000 people between 2002 and 2008 compared to 13 per 100,000 people in the 1990s.[xxii]

China’s Demographic Profile by Age and Gender in 1982, 2000 and 2030[xxiii]

Ratio of Producers to Consumers in China, 1982-2050[xxiv]

Proportion of Elderly Population in Urban and Rural China, 2000-2050[xxv]

Adult Population 15+  by Age Group: China, 1970-2030 (estimated and projected, thousands) [xxvi]

Percentage of Chinese Women with No Sons by Age 60[xxvii]

Recent (2000) vs. Projected (2040) Population Structure of Beijing[xxviii]

Proportion of single children in China, 2011-2030:Adult Population, ages 25-49 years (%, projected)[xxix]

Projected Population Structure, 2025:
Japan (un-shaded) vs. Heilongjiang Province, China (shaded)[xxx]

Labor Shortage in China

China’s labor pool is on the decline due to dwindling human resources.[xxxi]

The support ratio in China (ratio of effective # of producers to effective # of consumers) is going to peak in 2013 and afterwards will decline because of the lack of younger workers.[xxxii]

The only part of the working age population that will increase in size between now and 2030 is the group aged 50 and over.[xxxiii]

The number of young laborers aged 20 to 29 has already come down by 14% in the last 10 years, and is projected to shrink further, by an additional 17%, in the next two decades.[xxxiv]

Due to low fertility in the 1990’s, China’s labor supply will begin to sharply decline in 2015.[xxxv]

Cai Fang, the Director of the Institute of Population and Labor Economics at the Chinese Academy

of Social Sciences (CASS), characterizes the decline in the working-age population as the “greatest threat to China’s economic prosperity”.[xxxvi]

Once the labor shortage becomes a serious concern, as it may well be in 10 years, it will be at least 10 years too late to do anything.[xxxvii]

Male Crime Statistics in China

China’s crime rate has nearly doubled in the last 20 years.[xxxviii]

Incidents of social unrest have risen from about 40,000 in 2001 to over 90,000 in 2009.[xxxix]

It was found that sex ratios and crime rate were connected, with just a one percent increase in sex ratio leading to a five percent increase in crime rate.[xl]

These incidents of social unrest are becoming larger, more violent, more likely to cross provincial borders, and more diverse in terms of participants and grievances.[xli]

A study concluded that increased sex ratios are correlated with increased bride abduction, trafficking of women, rape and prostitution.[xlii]

Unmarried men between the ages of 24 and 35 are also found to be three times more likely to murder than their married counterparts.[xliii]

High male sex ratios can lead to more authoritarian forms of government in an effort to crack down on crime.[xliv]

High male sex ratios also lead to a lower rate of female literacy and workforce participation.[xlv]

Unmarried men in China are almost always poor and uneducated, 74% don’t have a high school diploma.  This number increases in the rural areas of China to 97%, with 40% or rural bachelors also being illiterate.[xlvi]

The tensions associated with so many bachelors in China's big cities might tempt its future leaders to mobilize this excess manpower and go pick a fight, or invade another country. China is already co-opting poor unmarried young men into the People's Liberation Army and the paramilitary People's Armed Police.[xlvii]

According to German scholar Gunnar Heinsohn, European imperial expansion after 1500 was the result of a male “youth bulge.”  Japan’s imperial expansion after 1914 was the result of a similar male youth bulge.  During the Cold War, it was male youth-bulge countries—Algeria, El Salvador, and Lebanon—that saw the worst civil wars and revolutions.  Heinsohn has also linked the recent rise of Islamist extremism in countries like Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan to an Islamic male youth bulge.[xlviii]

Political scientists Valerie Hudson and Andrea den Boer warn that China and India could be the next countries that, as a result of a surplus of men, will see increased violence and extremism.[xlix]

Niall Ferguson, Professor of History at Harvard University, argues that the surplus of men in China will lead to domestic instability or militaristic expansionism, or even imperialism.  This is all the more likely with the shrill nationalism already in Asia.[l]

Previous societies with large numbers of unattached men have turned to a more authoritarian political system.[li]

China’s gender imbalance is a powerful, driving force behind trafficking in women and sexual slavery, not only in China, but all over Asia.  According to a statement by the United States Department of State, “Women and children are trafficked into [China] from North Korea, Vietnam, Burma, Mongolia and Thailand.”  These women are trafficked into China and forced into marriages, employment, and sexual exploitation.[lii]

Many unattached men migrate from rural areas to urban destinations, patronizing prostitutes there. In doing so, these men could turn China's HIV epidemic - now confined to certain high-risk populations - into a more generalized one by creating "bridging" populations from high- to low-risk individuals. Such male bridging populations have fueled HIV epidemics in Cambodia and sub-Saharan Africa.[liii]

Women currently make up approximately 80% of an estimated 50,000 to 100,000 North Korean refugees in China, and of these women, an estimated 90% become victims of trafficking.[liv]

Chinese families’ preference for sons, and the growing gender imbalance, increasing numbers of male children are trafficked for adoption, and women and girls are trafficked for forced marriages and commercial sexual exploitation.

Article 240 of China’s Criminal Law defines the trafficking of persons as ‘‘abducting, kidnapping,

buying, trafficking in, fetching, sending, or transferring a woman or child, for the purpose of selling the victim.’’ This definition does not automatically prohibit forms of trafficking such as forced adult and child labor, commercial sex trade of minors over 14 years old, or trafficking of men, which are covered under Article 3 of the UN TIP Protocol.[lv]

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