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by maxglute 581 days ago
PRCs aggregate births from 2000-22 is like ~350m, around a US worth with 60% and rising tertiary enrollment, disproportionate going STEM + technical. They're going to be drowning in talent (hence youth unemployment problem), multiple times than US can match with domestic+immigration. This is more than enough talent (and cheap due to supply/demand) to compete/dominate in strategic industries until 2060s+, especially with emphasis on driving brains into hard sciences vs finance or excess software. Yeah there's going to be challenges dealing with the pyramid but not with domains driven by skilled talent. All the catchup PRC has done in past 20 years was fueled by fraction of skilled workforce relative to what they'll generate in next 20-30.
1 comments
Tade0 580 days ago
The high youth unemployment is an indicator that their industries haven't caught up with providing jobs - there's no way for those people to utilise that talent.

All that when China's fertility rate has been below replacement since at least the early 90s. This is the generation of "little emperors", who were heavily invested in.

Japan went that route, complete with a real estate bubble which is also present in China. Didn't go well for them.

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maxglute 580 days ago
OECD combined STEM talent generation = high more indicator of surplus / overcapacity in generation = cheaper talent. It's about not having SHORTAGE of talent while catching up, even if some excess ends up driving cabs. Eitherway, youth emplloyment high, but not crippling high and overall unemployment is like 5% which means youths finds jobs eventually, just not right away.

The goal of family planning / investing in 1-2 kids is explicitly so resrouces can be pooled to throw them into tertiary - little educated emperors - so they can compete in advanced sectors instead of having 10 kids make widgets.

Japan is basically a US Satrap whose economy can be easily coerced via US influence (i.e. US killing JP semi / forcing it to appreciate FX to kill competitiveness). PRC insulated from that / doesn't have to comply. Also JP's talent is why it's still competitive DESPITE having such shit TFR, same with SKR. The issue witht those are relatively small countries is that they've already maxed out their human capital (80% skilled work force). They're running to stand still from bad demographic trends. PRC is still transitioning from 20% skilled to 80% skilled, they still have so much substantial room to accomodate 100s of millions of new skilled workforce and milk productivity gains current driven down by massive pool of under productive / undereducated labour will slowly be replaced (really die, since that cohort leans old). That's the problem comparing JP with PRC demographics... their skilled demographic/workforce composition not remotely comparable.

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