No Sex Please We’re Chinese(bitterwinter.org)
bitterwinter.org
No Sex Please We’re Chinese
https://bitterwinter.org/chinas-demographic-crisis-how-overwork-inhibits-sexuality/
49 comments
Where I live in the US southeast, non-professionals tend to get married at around 20-24 years old, then tend start having kids within a year or two of getting married. Income doesn't really factor at all.
At least on the more conservative side, perhaps one reason this works economically is the culture of the wife staying home, and the husband working. Although the overall income is much lower, this makes the dollar cost of each additional child small - kids don't eat that much, and there are no child care costs. By having kids young, both your parents are still healthy and active.
At least on the more conservative side, perhaps one reason this works economically is the culture of the wife staying home, and the husband working. Although the overall income is much lower, this makes the dollar cost of each additional child small - kids don't eat that much, and there are no child care costs. By having kids young, both your parents are still healthy and active.
Well the conservative side you are saying doesn't work these days because raising kids is not something that used to be in 90's. As a parents I think everybody want to see their children get high quality of life, luxurious things, good school etc. So both parents have to go to work to fulfill these demands. And we are taking about US which provides lot of incentives to parents tbh. And most of the time the costs starts to grow when children starts to go school.
As someone with a kid whose spouse took extra time off work, it’s still a ton of work.
I’d argue with a stay at home parent full-time until they are teens it’s still a massive undertaking. One well worth it (in my opinion), but if your life goal is money and career advancement kids don’t help in that regard.
I’d argue with a stay at home parent full-time until they are teens it’s still a massive undertaking. One well worth it (in my opinion), but if your life goal is money and career advancement kids don’t help in that regard.
Yep, me and wife have an arrangement currently where I do all childcare outside of preschool (i.e. staying home when sick, drop off and pickup at 4, days the school is closed etc) which turns out to be quite often. I also take more of the household chores, maybe two thirds. In the time that's left I work on my own project. It's still a ton of work, but much more manageable than when we both worked full-time.
Dating is also just a PitA for most people given the current payoff and the alternatives available, which doesn't help either. Few people enjoy a second job over their existing full-time job with a potentially much lower or even negative payoff.
You’d be surprised the number of upper-middle class professionals I know who had a kid “by mistake” despite their being reliable ways to plan kids. It obviously clashes with the biological drive and risk taking.
Most of them were ambivalent about having a kid (or more kids) so the unexpected pregnancy was taken in stride but I was surprised how many were unplanned.
Most of them were ambivalent about having a kid (or more kids) so the unexpected pregnancy was taken in stride but I was surprised how many were unplanned.
> and it's STILL super hard to raise a child
It's super hard because you want your child to have a better life than you, and from the get go.
Parents nowadays want the trajectory of their child to be transposed upwards from the get go, and then be an up& to the right chart for their whole life.
This was never the case in human history, people never really put much thought into reproduction, matter of fact people never really put much thought into anything.
Very little time to wonder and price odds when you gotta go out and hunt to keep yourself alive.
People aren't having children because they think too much about outcomes for themselves, for their potential children and so forth.
Nature wanted reproduction to be impulsive, the whole planning for is humans shooting themselves in the foot.
It's super hard because you want your child to have a better life than you, and from the get go.
Parents nowadays want the trajectory of their child to be transposed upwards from the get go, and then be an up& to the right chart for their whole life.
This was never the case in human history, people never really put much thought into reproduction, matter of fact people never really put much thought into anything.
Very little time to wonder and price odds when you gotta go out and hunt to keep yourself alive.
People aren't having children because they think too much about outcomes for themselves, for their potential children and so forth.
Nature wanted reproduction to be impulsive, the whole planning for is humans shooting themselves in the foot.
I agree on the planning part, but I think the difficulty of raising a child is not only due to parents putting in more effort, although it's certainly a big part. Personally, we try to not put high expectations on our son, we don't have or plan on tons of extracurricular activities etc, but the first few years of their life is super hard anyway because of the constant sleep deprivation, the stress from having to perform at work despite this, and next to no free time for yourself or your relationship to your spouse. I think the reason it's harder now is mainly because both parents are expected to (and need to) work, and there's little support from the "village", because there is no village anymore. Grandparents live far away, kids don't just hang out in droves while one parent keeps an eye out through the kitchen window etc. There are so many factors that make parenting really time and energy consuming.
> Having children is not first and foremost a consequence of having sex, it's an active choice that you make plans for.
Who is “you”? Is it a woman that has no financial independence in a society where she may have to fend for herself if she does not have unprotected sex without access to birth control?
Because, until very recently, that probably describes most women’s circumstances when planning to have kids.
I am betting it is not a coincidence that the timeline for women’s financial independence and access to cheap and convenient birth control lines up with declining birth rates.
Who is “you”? Is it a woman that has no financial independence in a society where she may have to fend for herself if she does not have unprotected sex without access to birth control?
Because, until very recently, that probably describes most women’s circumstances when planning to have kids.
I am betting it is not a coincidence that the timeline for women’s financial independence and access to cheap and convenient birth control lines up with declining birth rates.
> I am betting it is not a coincidence that the timeline for women’s financial independence and access to cheap and convenient birth control lines up with declining birth rates.
So we're in agreement? Women are not having fewer kids because couples have less sex, it's because of things like financial independence and birth control that allows (and essentially requires) couples to plan for kids. And when you have to actively chose to have kids in this kind of environment you'll postpone it as long as you can, perhaps limiting yourself to one child, or none at all.
So we're in agreement? Women are not having fewer kids because couples have less sex, it's because of things like financial independence and birth control that allows (and essentially requires) couples to plan for kids. And when you have to actively chose to have kids in this kind of environment you'll postpone it as long as you can, perhaps limiting yourself to one child, or none at all.
Sorry, I misread your comment as referring to throughout history, having kids was a choice and not a side effect (at least for women) from having sex.
way to insert an unrelated woke issue into the conversation
> until very recently
how about now? Fact of the matter is even in the developed countries where work isn't stressful and people do have sex, birth rate is still low. So simply encouraging people to have sex isn't the solution if you want more kids. I believe that's the point they are making.
> until very recently
how about now? Fact of the matter is even in the developed countries where work isn't stressful and people do have sex, birth rate is still low. So simply encouraging people to have sex isn't the solution if you want more kids. I believe that's the point they are making.
That had nothing to do with wokeness, it's an obvious bias in the observation. Outside of careerists circles, which is a tiny group, things are quite different. The idea that life is plannable is again an indicator of a particular background and culture, that is representative of only a fraction of humans.
> The idea that life is plannable is again an indicator of a particular background and culture, that is representative of only a fraction of humans
Again you bring up inequality while the discussion is around how to increase birth rate. You didn't even try to link inequality with birth rate. I guess it's cool to raise awareness by hijacking discussion of other issues?
Again you bring up inequality while the discussion is around how to increase birth rate. You didn't even try to link inequality with birth rate. I guess it's cool to raise awareness by hijacking discussion of other issues?
Getting children is 100% plannable. Even if you have no access to birth control you can still choose to not have sex. That has nothing do to with background.
> you can still choose to not have sex
this I cannot agree with since it doesn't align with reality
this I cannot agree with since it doesn't align with reality
Can you explain how it doesn't align with reality? It's not uncommon anymore that people who are 30 years old still never had sex. For whatever reason they were capable of not having sex for ~15 years. That quite clearly says to me it is possible, some people just are willing to take the risk of having a child.
> For whatever reason they were capable of not having sex for ~15 years
"whatever" being not in a cohabitate relationship
"whatever" being not in a cohabitate relationship
I misread the comment I replied to as stating children were a choice throughout history. But my comment does not have anything to do with woke-ness. It is simply meant to show the extremely high cost of children made explicit now that women do not have to eat that cost.
I wonder if quite a big part of the problem is that the one child policy normalised single child families for an entire generation.
I know for certain that my wife and I both want to have another child because we both grew up with siblings and can see the lifelong benefits. Children are pretty hard work though, and there's been a lot of moments when we've thought "do I really want to go through all this again".
Take away the normalisation of multi child families and I bet a lot of people would just stick with one.
Which is of course a fairly hard problem to solve - if you aren't having 2.2 children per couple then your population is shrinking.
I know for certain that my wife and I both want to have another child because we both grew up with siblings and can see the lifelong benefits. Children are pretty hard work though, and there's been a lot of moments when we've thought "do I really want to go through all this again".
Take away the normalisation of multi child families and I bet a lot of people would just stick with one.
Which is of course a fairly hard problem to solve - if you aren't having 2.2 children per couple then your population is shrinking.
Yes, with the "One-Child" policy in effect for 36 years (1979–2015), an entire generation grew up with no siblings. With this being mandated, families just didn't plan for 2+ children. Maybe they bought a smaller house, or other lifestyle choices. Now you cannot just flip a switch and expect all of these families have multiple children.
I think there is a switch and that is called incentives. We can see these tactics working at least on Japan. If China government starts providing huge incentives, tax breaks I think couple will think about multiple children. The only problem of China is they can't rely on migrants like west because they may still want cheap labors for manufacturing. And Japan has separate culture problems with migrants.
>Which is of course a fairly hard problem to solve - if you aren't having 2.2 children per couple then your population is shrinking.
You can increase throughput with parallelization or speedups of single threaded performance.
But procreation age is trending upwards, too so I guess this is rather theoretical.
You can increase throughput with parallelization or speedups of single threaded performance.
But procreation age is trending upwards, too so I guess this is rather theoretical.
I live in europe, and I'm used to standard 40h workweek (and usually not an hour more than that)... but I've also worked (in my younger years) some crazy hours, especially with college lectures+work1+work2.
I don't think the "i'm too tired to have sex" is the problem... I know it's anecdotal, but during that time, the bigger problem was trying to find someone to have sex with (actually going out there and meeting new people). The second problem, with so much work, adding aditional work (a child + extra cost + extra work for childcare + extra time needed) was not a pleasant thought.
I don't think the "i'm too tired to have sex" is the problem... I know it's anecdotal, but during that time, the bigger problem was trying to find someone to have sex with (actually going out there and meeting new people). The second problem, with so much work, adding aditional work (a child + extra cost + extra work for childcare + extra time needed) was not a pleasant thought.
If you cannot be with your child for 13+ hours a day, 6 days a week, wouldn't that be a disincentive to having children?
And working all those extra 996 unpaid hours would really grate on my nerves. Especially if the government's official position is not enforced by the government. I'd do the "laying down" version of repopulating the country - i.e. not doing it.
And working all those extra 996 unpaid hours would really grate on my nerves. Especially if the government's official position is not enforced by the government. I'd do the "laying down" version of repopulating the country - i.e. not doing it.
China’s demographic crisis, according to a researcher, has a very simple explanation: Chinese work too much, and are just too tired to make love.
Chinese government abolished one-child policy and also the following two-child policy. Actually, at the moment they have the opposite problem: the population is aging and the new generations do not even have enough children to guarantee their generational change.
I wonder if the old one child policy had a knock on effect, changing the societal norms and views of having multiple children? A knock on effect that didn't go away after the law was relaxed perhaps.
Are you forgetting the one child policy?
That is a blurb for the article posted by the submitter, the third sentence of which will answer your question.
> the CCP is organizing scholarly conferences and asking researchers to look for the root causes of the demographic problem.
What a proactive approach. I wish Western governments emulated it.
What a proactive approach. I wish Western governments emulated it.
Also interesting: despite all these policies the birthrate is still as low as 1.7, meaning there must be other factors why people are not having kids globally.