[hackingthenews]

It could also be that they see no scenario ahead where they want the average number of children per woman to be above 3. I don't think China wants back to exponential growth ever. They probably want to find their equilibrium.

Consider if something unlikely happens that completely changes the dynamic of families, e.g. a cultural shift where women stay more at home and have more babies. If the average family started having more than 3 children, they would consider bringing back this system, which could cause big social problems, as it costs more social capital to bring back an unpopular system than to simply maintain it.

[blueblisters]

I think the idea is to bring the average up to 2.1, which is the accepted "replacement" fertility rate, to stem a population decline. One way to achieve that level is when a majority of women have 2 children but a few have 3 children. For a population the size of China, a "few" might mean a few million. I don't see that happening without a few carrots.

[dragonelite]

Its a hard problem to solve don't even know a developed country that actually managed this problem well.

[hutzlibu]

I am not sure, that this is a problem that needs centralized "solving".

I don't want anyone tell me, how much children I can or should have.

We got to make sure the work life balance is in order for people to have the time and money to afford a family and give adequate support like daycare etc.

But apart from that, I really don't like some buerocrats in some buerau somewhere calculating the "correct" number of births. That regulates itself. There is immigration and emigration. There is automatisation (elderly care), better medicine, so older people can tend to themself longer and less need of a "dumb" workforce etc. etc.

Trying to calculate it and declare meassures based that, can only fail in my opinion.

[WillDaSilva]

> We got to make sure the work life balance is in order for people to have the time and money to afford a family and give adequate support like daycare etc.

Stuff like this can and does result from bureaucrats / policy-makers deciding what an ideal number of children (for the well-being of the society) is. You say "that regulates itself", but clearly the things you listed (work-life balance, economic prosperity, daycare, etc.) are not self-regulating. You also mention specifically that this matter doesn't need centralized solving, but that's different from what you went on to say, that the factors that go into determining how many children are had are self-regulating. A decentralized approach does nothing to guarantee that.

Whether you like it or not, the government has a large influence over all of these matters. Choosing to not regulate them is a choice that will affect how they turn out. Likewise, the very structure of the economy and social systems will affect these things. A government can not avoid determining what those are like, whether by the government's active influence over them, or its more laissez-faire approach. When you have a monopoly on violence, you cannot truely recuse yourself from what happens in the society around you, and if you lack a monopoly on violence then you aren't really a government.

[hutzlibu]

I have a young family, so I can tell you that I do know a bit how things go and how many things don't work so well - to which I do in fact blame the various regulations.

Because you know, what worked best for us? All the things that are not regulated, like grandparents watching over the childs or teenage babysitter. The very well regulated state kindergarten?

It was a nightmare so far, even though we have a quite good kindergarden compared to the various stories I heard so far of what is possible, as well. And sure, Corona was not helping with that either, but I know quite some people in social jobs and I listen to their stories since way before corona.

[iammisc]

Wow... I can't believe you're advocating for something completely normal, like choosing to decide how many children you have, and how creepy it is that some governments literally dictate to you this most private aspect of you and your spouse's life, and you are being downvoted. The shills must be out in full force today.

[hackingthenews]

Yup agreed, commented the exact same below.

[refurb]

Considering countries who have tried to increase their birth rate have failed to even budge the number by 10%, I’m pretty sure the risk of too many births is pretty much non-existent.

[jelsisi]

This has to be looked at country by country. Unlike Europe, China still has a large rural, poor population. Without regulation, their population will explode, something the chinese government probably wants to avoid.

[throwaway316943]

Instead of regulating their lives like they do with the child policy and making migration illegal maybe they should try improving their lives a little so they don’t need to have a ton of kids or work illegally and without services in order to get by? Who would have thunk a communist country would treat their poor workers so badly?

[hackingthenews]

Agreed. But if you could maintain a system that avoids a very unlikely scenario with possibly huge disastrous consequences, then why not?

[runawaybottle]

China may not be as concerned about uncontrolled population growth anymore due to their broader strategy of exporting their workforce:

https://qz.com/africa/1963566/how-many-chinese-workers-are-t...

[riffraff]

that is not really "exporting". If you export bananas, the bananas do not come back to you, while these workers are only temporarily abroad, they're not (for the most part) emigrants who moved there to stay.

[thaumasiotes]

> I don't think China wants back to exponential growth ever.

Any policy defined in terms of "X children per couple" or "X children per woman" is, by definition, exponential growth.

When X is 3, it's very rapid exponential growth.

[hackingthenews]

You are correct of course.

The 3 children per woman limit is still the smallest number that accommodates for the 2.1 average required for replacement level. To achieve equilibrium and avoid rapid growth the limit must be set to 3 and then hope that the average will be drawn down enough by the women who can't/won't have children for various reasons.

Not advocating for this policy, and I am not considering how well it works in practice and the morality. This is just a reductionist model.

[yakubin]

When X is 2, then 2 people replace 2 in theory, so there is no growth. In practice, some of those children will die early, so 2 is actually a minor reduction, not growth, forget about exponential.

[thaumasiotes]

When X is 2, you have one of the most important functions in the family of functions that display exponential growth. It is the one in which the exponent is 0.

> not growth, forget about exponential.

This is really weird phrasing, since you're on much stronger ground saying "not growth" [arguable] than you are "not exponential" [flat wrong]. I just pointed out that defining results in terms of "X children per woman" will always necessarily produce an exponential curve. That's the definition of an exponential curve. If you want to distinguish between "growth" and "decay", you can say so, but you're still stuck with labeling them "exponential growth" and "exponential decay".

[yakubin]

> When X is 2, you have one of the most important functions in the family of functions that display exponential growth. It is the one in which the exponent is 0.

This is technically correct, but also purely academic. If I called the function f(X) = 5 in an analysis exam "exponential", then I would be laughed out of this exam, and for a good reason.

> This is really weird phrasing, since you're on much stronger ground saying "not growth" [arguable] than you are "not exponential" [flat wrong].

"not A" implies "not (A and B)". That's all I meant.

[thaumasiotes]

> If I called the function f(X) = 5 in an analysis exam "exponential", then I would be laughed out of this exam

That's not true at all; you'd have to look at the context. If you called it an exponential function as part of a discussion of exponential functions, you'd raise no eyebrows.

Even if you were doing it in a weird way, it's unlikely you'd get laughed out of the room; math exams are not known for penalizing you for being correct.

[alva]

X = 1 is not exponential growth

[anoncake]

Sure it is: x = 1^t

[thaumasiotes]

Yes, it is. Since the population is shrinking over time, it is more often called "exponential decay", but mathematically there's no difference. It just means the value of the exponent is negative.

[beowulfey]

Some people pick the strangest hills to die on.

Per this argument, I would think that an exponential function is different to something experiencing exponential growth. One of them is a definition, the other is a description. They aren’t really interchangeable when it comes to communicating a point.