China’s Babies, Boys, and the Elderly

Several weeks ago, we saw South Korea’s blind date events. Somewhat similarly, China offers “love education” courses. Inspired by government, Chinese universities hope to boost a student’s “…ability to correctly understand marriage and love and manage love relationships.”

Love education is just one weapon in China’s marriage arsenal. Still though, marriage registrations declined from 7.68 million in 2023 to last year’s 6.1 million. Reflecting a trend, 6.1 million was more than the Covid decrease and half 2013’s registrations.

China’s marriage worries are really about babies.

China’s Birth Rate

History

During the 1970s, China moved from a “late marriage, longer spacing, and fewer children” campaign to a one-child policy. Implemented locally, the law, community institutions, sterilization, abortion, and infanticide fueled one-child. Especially in the city, couples with more than one child could have lost a job, 10 to 20 percent of their pay, and even 40 percent of a year’s wages.

It took more than three decades for China’s leadership to decide that the tradeoffs were too costly.

In 2013, the government said two children were permitted if one parent was an only child. Then, starting January 1, 2016, all couples were allowed to have two children. By 2023, they said three (and more) were okay.

Babies

From more than six babies per woman in the 1960s, China’s fertility rate steadily slid from 2.6 by the mid-1980s to approximately 1.6 in the 1990s and 1.7 now. Correspondingly, their birth rate plunged:

Boys

With boys the preferred single child, the most distorted gender ratio (my arrow) was for 15 to 19 year olds. At 117.2, there are 117.2 males, aged 15 to 19, for every 100 females:

The Elderly

Whereas China was worried about too many children, now the concern is too many old people. Single adult children have no siblings with whom to share caring for their parents. Then, when those only children marry, they have four elderly people to care for.

The BBC tells us that almost 25% of China’s population is 65 or older:

Our Bottom Line: Old Age Dependency Ratios

Offsetting inadequate pensions and a slowing economy, the working population will have less for itself.

Expressed mathematically, we have a ballooning numerator of the aged and a (relatively smaller) denominator of the population ages 15 to 64 that is called an old age dependency ratio:

When we combine too few babies with too many boys and a slowing economy, the elderly dependency ratio is one huge unintended consequence.

My sources and more: Always chock full of the big and small news stories, the BBC’s World Business Report podcast inspired today’s update. In addition to our past post, our facts came from Barrons, Macrotrends, Reuters here and here. and the BBC.

Please note that several of today’s sentences were in a past econlife post.