huangthomas

China Will Feel the Brunt of This Demographic Shift

Culture, economy, education play important role in deciding the size of a family in China. Religion plays little role. The wording of "non-religious" is a poor choice. Most Chinese has religion, Buddhism, Taoism, Christian, Catholic, Muslim.....etc. , although they are discouraged to warship in non-government sponsored or approved premises.
Economy plays major role, because most people could not afford to have more than two children. Imagine the government only provide 6-year of free elementary education, then you are on your own. There is no universal health insurance and health care and higher education are very expensive. Average family spend 50% of their income on foods.
Even if the government lift the one child policy, the number of children a couple may have probably will increase from 1.0 to 1.8. I doubt it is going to go over 2.0. Therefore, the population size will keep shrinking. This is consistent with all developing countries in East Asia.

China is lucky not to have a social security system designed to use younger generation to support the older generation. It is a defined contribution system and I hope the government will have enough wealth to support a satisfactory safety net. For example, if you live in Taiwan and age over 65, you are entitle to monthly living support from public of $100. With PPP (purchasing power parity) adjustment, it worth approximately $250 in purchasing power. If the elderly has a place to live, with national health insurance throw in, they are OK.

Remind you China has budget surplus and a foreign currency reserve of 1.4 trillion and growing. Do not extrapolate our current difficulties to China. China is China, she is not USA