Revisiting a decidedly long-term trend within a span of about a year and a half requires some explanation. When the theme is population change and the growing tendency of countries to increasingly worry about having more old people and less babies in the future, it requires even greater explanation because the intervening period is definitely not one during which any major generational change would have taken place. What did take place, though, was Covid. When I was writing the first part (as I must call it since this is the second part!) we were unknowingly on the cusp of a pandemic that has the potential of changing human history in ways that we cannot even grasp yet. If this sounds like hyperbole, let’s take a bird’s eye view at what happened during the pandemic, and the data that’s been coming in since the pandemic hit.
When the pandemic started out, people were stuck indoors for months. While the duration of the so-called ‘lockdowns’ varied from one country to another, in no country was it less than a few months at the very least. Even when the lockdowns were lifted, reopening was gradual. This meant that most people – bar health workers, emergency responders and a few essential service operators – were stuck indoors with family (or away from them) for months.
This engendered an entire genre of jokes about how couples getting to spend time together would inevitably fornicate, and if they did, there would be a baby boom. Data that has been coming in the last few months suggests that people were indeed spending more time with their near and dear ones. This is evident from the rise in domestic violence cases, the incidents of child abuse and CSAM (Child Sexual Abuse Material) production and distribution and decline in the productivity of female workers who were stuck at home tending to their husbands and kids. But even if we set aside for a moment the effects of all this “we time” that people got, the question remains – what about more children ?
As it turns out, the optimistic expectations of a baby boom have not materialized. Forget a baby boom, we are staring at a baby bust. No, that’s not a sculpture of a baby’s head. Rather, it’s what demographers are calling the acute decline in the number of children produced during the first few months of the pandemic. Why the first few months ? Because children take an average of nine months to develop before being “born” and it has only been so long since the lockdowns began in various parts of the globe.
How acute is this “baby bust” ? Data from South Korea suggests that the total fertility rate of the country has fallen to a historic low of 0.84. Similar reports of decline are coming in from Japan, Taiwan, Singapore and other East Asian tigers. New Zealand, which generally does not report a decline (given how happy they all are under Ardern), has also reported a decline in the number of babies being born.
The Western countries offer a more mixed picture. While fertility rates have tended to be low for a long time, they have made up their looming population deficit with immigration. In 2020, however, it is estimated that between 500,000 and 1,300,000 workers left the country, and coupled with low birth rates, this could prove to be a threat to the workforce of the country in the future. In France, the number of babies born in January 2021 was 13% lower than the number for January 2020. For Italy in December 2020, the fall was 21.6% compared to the data from a year earlier. For Spain, the same figure is about 20%.
Looking elsewhere, similar trends are noticeable. UAE, a country in the Middle East which requires people to have jobs to stay in the country, noted a sharp fall in the number of workers. While this doesn’t automatically suggest a fall in the number of births, it still is a decline in the total population of the country.
Finally, we come to the case of China. Chinese preliminary data suggests that there has been a 15% fall in the number of births in 2020 compared to the previous year. This must be taken with a pinch of salt, since Chinese population data is often skewed to suggest a rosier TFR. However, given that the top decision making body in the country asked for an “appropriate” fertility rate for 2021, it suggests that the Chinese are indeed very worried.
We will return to China in a moment. Before we do, it is important to ask why we are faced with this alarming data when the “conventional” wisdom suggested that people would have more kids when spending time together. As it turns out, people were spending time together out of compulsion and not necessarily passion. Loving couples (and not so loving ones apparently) were stuck together because many jobs that had depended on people going out and working had simply shut down. They were furloughed, retrenched, laid off or fired, and regardless of the terminology, were spending their hours sitting at home and staring at a very uncertain future on their devices.
Further, we need to remember that many people were, in fact, not allowed to be together at all. The lockdowns and travel restrictions kicked in in many parts of the world out of the blue, leaving people stunned and stuck in place. As the now infamous example of Dominic Cummings breaking curfew rules to visit his girlfriend suggests, people did not like being kept away from their loved ones. In the absence of physical contact, no babies are possible. This is perhaps best demonstrated by the falling number of marriages, which suggests that people simply did not feel that they would be able to stay together or be financially secure enough to start a family. No family, no babies.
To be sure, this picture is not something worth writing about simply because of the decline itself. The 2008 recession was followed by a similar baby bust, but it picked up slightly in some parts of the world thereafter. The Spanish Flu a century ago saw a similar trend as far as populations were concerned.
The problem, however, is that this time, the pandemic feeds into an existing state of population decline. A population decline that produced the first article of this two-parter (for now at least). Women are having children later, or not having children at all. They are marrying less, working more and are both more ambitious and less financially secure than their mothers and grandmothers were. All of this suggests that the decline in births and marriages were conscious decisions that had at least some amount of female input.
Given the rationality of not bringing children into a world you are not sure of surviving yourself (both biologically and financially), the question to ask next is how soon can we expect a return to “normal” ? The answer is cliché. There will probably be no return to normal, but only a “new normal”. This is due to the fact that the decline in economic stability and overall output has been more severe than was seen during either the 2008 or 1918 events, and given the existing trend of declining female fertility and fall in the number of children, the pandemic will only feed this downward spiral rather than be an outlier data point.
But it is also true that a good number of women of childbearing age will want to have children. Unfortunately for them, child bearing is not something that can be postponed indefinitely. Female fertility and physical capacity to bear a child begins to decline in the late 30s and dies out in the 40s. Considering the fact that many women – especially in the more educated and advanced countries – had already put off having children till their last possible child-bearing window, it is very likely that many of them would actually find themselves unable to conceive. Given that careers and economic futures are valued more than the ability to bear children, it is unlikely that these women would risk their physical well-being and that of their would-be children by going in for children at an age when their bodies can no longer reproduce optimally. Long story short, some of the children who were not born in 2020 will never be born.
All of this will simply aggravate the trends that have already been noticed with regard to changes in population structure and what is known as the “dependency ratio”. Less children would mean that the proportion of elderly (65 and above) would begin to increase compared to the youth (0-15) and the workers (15-65). This means less workers, soldiers, mothers and intellectuals. Beyond a certain point, these people – who can no longer have children – will become equal to or greater than the 0-15 population segment, thus causing a gradual inversion of the population pyramid. They would need to be taken care of, but the number of people taking care of them and indeed, defending and working for them, would reduce.
This will have profound implications, which I discussed at some length in the first article. In brief, it would make it harder to provide for the elderly through pension funds paid into by the youth and the workers. It would also reduce the economic growth because there are both less workers and less demand since elderly don’t need as many goods as workers in their prime do. Geopolitically, the economic and demographic decline would together ensure that the aspirations for “great power” status of countries like China and India remain mere aspirations.
This brings us to the specific case of China and India. The pandemic has set alarm bells ringing in China. China, like other Asian countries, has been gradually declining in terms of total fertility rate for quite some time now. This decline was masked by the state apparatus, but it appears that Xi Jinping and his cohort are no longer prepared to paper over the yawning gaps in China’s population policy.
The biggest gap is in terms of the children being born. The Chinese population continues to increase, keeping it marginally ahead of India and saving many General Knowledge books from having to be revised ahead of time. However, such increase is ever-less and we are rapidly approaching the point of stagnation i.e. when births and deaths equal each other and the latter edges past the former. South Korea, another East Asian tiger, witnessed her first decline in population since WWII. China’s day is not far off.
It might be worthwhile to ask why the population keeps growing even as the total number of births keeps falling. The simple answer is that those who bear children were born a generation earlier, and hence, represent an earlier demographic trend. Those bearing children right now would have been born in the late 1980s, 1990s or early 2000s. The number of these women thus represents not the current fertility rate, but the population growth rate of an earlier time.
This is however, small comfort for China. China imposed a harsh one-child policy in the 1970s, and kept it up until 2015. Hence, the mothers of today would have been born during the heyday of the one-child policy in the 1980s and 1990s. Since China shares a patriarchal preference for boys compared to girls, many couples simply opted to have a boy instead of a girl. This sex-selective child-bearing naturally resulted in less women coming of age today. Since those going out of the reproductive age i.e. those in their 40s would have been born in the late 1960s and early 1970s i.e. before the one-child policy was imposed and couples began having only one male child, the number of women entering reproductive age is much lower than the number who are leaving this demographic bracket.
The problem is so acute that by some estimates about 3.4 million women are leaving this bracket every year and much lower numbers are entering it. Given that the next decade will see more one-child generation people enter reproductive age, the problem is set to get steadily worse. Some scholars estimate that it would be beyond 2030 before the demographic imbalance caused by the one-child policy is repaired.
Now that we know that there are less and less women in China to bear children every year, the question of total fertility rate comes in. TFR is the average number of children borne by women every year. If the total number of women is taken to be stable, each woman of reproductive age is expected to bear about 2.1 children to replace the population in a generation’s time. However, we know that the total number of women is not stable, but is declining due to sex-selective procreation. Within this shrinking pool, the number of children that the women are bearing is also declining. The TFR of China as per latest figures is around 1.6, which means that even if there were enough women, the number of children born would not replace the population.
Taken together, the lower number of young women and lower fertility rate pose an existential threat to China. Chinese society is not welcoming of foreigners to a degree the Western societies are, and neither can China offer the lucrative opportunities that the entrepots of global capitalism can. Sure, China is a powerful pole in an increasingly bipolar world, but to expect people swarming into China to redress this looming demographic challenge would be wishful thinking.
In the absence of sufficient in-migration, China faces all the problems listed above. It is now expected that the Chinese would fall behind India by as early as 2027 in terms of population. This population would be increasingly older, requiring more investment and greater outlay in pensions. However, those working and contributing to those pension funds i.e. the younger people, would steadily become less and less. At the current rate of decline, the main state pension fund is expected to run out of money by 2035.
Beyond pensions and caring for the elderly, there would be major ramifications for the economy. An ageing workforce would not be suited for the strenuous manufacturing jobs that are the backbone of China’s prosperity today. There is no indication that China would be able to transition to a high-tech and high-paying economy where the majority of jobs are desk jobs that can be done by the elderly. While the country is gradually exploring relaxing the stringent retirement ages (55 for women and 60 for men) to allow them to work longer, it is a fact that the elderly cannot shoulder the harsh working conditions that are required to keep the Chinese economy well-oiled.
On top of this, there is the problem of debt. The Chinese have taken on record levels of debt, and the pandemic has only worsened the situation by shutting down economic activity over large regions. While the Chinese lockdown of Wuhan was among the harshest but shortest in the world, the economic toll is still noticeable. Even as the economy comes back to life, the debt would have become more unserviceable and would become even more so in the future on the backs of a shrining working age population.
All of this, perhaps, explains the urgency of China’s aggressive foreign policy. For decades, China sought to stay somewhat aloof from the major power struggles of the world. However, ever since Xi Jinping came to power, China’s ambitions appear to have broadened and she is now in conflict with virtually all of her neighbours except Russia. Chinese actions in Hong Kong have drawn international condemnation, and the disputes have rendered China increasingly friendless in a world where the US still dominates.
All of this, on the face of it, would appear hasty and calculated to further the strongman cult of Xi. However, scratch beneath the surface and a different picture emerges. China is ageing, and she has not yet found any magic elixir that would cause more women to appear overnight, or the existing ones to bear a much larger number of children. In fact, given the glacial pace at which the existing outdated demographic policies are being dismantled, it seems that the leadership is at least somewhat resigned to a decline in population in the 2030s and 2040s.
A decline in working age population would also cause the size of the army to decline. This is not merely in terms of the number of soldiers. The economy feeds the military, and a halting economy would have less stomach for a muscular military. Since China – despite being authoritarian – is not in the league of military juntas like Myanmar or North Korea, it would be foolish to assume that China would continue to support a large military at the cost of the basic well-being of the ordinary folks.
Based on that assumption, it would not be fallacious to believe that the Chinese leadership fears that in the course of the next decade, the ability of China to flex her muscles would decline. For the country whose leader Mao Zedong had famously said that even in case of a nuclear war, a few Chinese would be left alive, it is tragically ironic that she must now accept that her geopolitical ambitions are rapidly moving into the realm of fantasy because old people cannot work or fight so well.
Unless she acts fast. Given that China has already achieved a stature next only to the USA, it is imperative for China to leverage every bit of her influence to secure for herself geopolitical domination of Asia and indeed of as much of the globe as possible. No longer is it possible to believe that the Chinese would continue to grow in number and eventually overawe every other population on the planet by their sheer numbers and hardwork. The window of demographic dividends is rapidly closing, and China needs to achieve what she can on the global stage before it shuts her out.
But what of India ? Despite the rosy predictions of the government, India has been badly battered by the pandemic. Her GDP fell drastically in the past year, and it is expected that birth data would not be too rosy either. In the last article, I have already pointed out the geographically skewed distribution of TFR in India. But taken nationally, the numbers are bound to go down because of the pandemic as they have all over the world. One can expect with some certainty that this will be reflected once the Census 2021 data is available before us.
India, like China, also has a major sex ratio problem. This too has some geographic skew but nowhere in India (not even Kerala) is the sex ratio at birth for boys and girls equal. In fact, some recent trends suggest that things have gotten somewhat worse in recent years due to the growing cheapness and prevalence of ultrasound machines. Like China, then, India can expect to have less daughters of reproductive age in a few years’ time (perhaps a decade at most) than we do now.
These suggest that if China’s faces her demographic moment of truth in the 2020s, India will do so in the 2030s and 2040s. The pandemic has only brought us closer to that moment of truth, but it would have come anyway. Given this inevitability, it is pertinent to ask what India can do as a country to survive in the short and the long term.
The answer, it seems, is two fold. Firstly, we must stave off an increasingly desperate China. Secondly, we must prepare for our own China moment. The first is immediate and urgent. China has already weaned off one of our closest allies – Russia, forging an alliance of convenience so close that Russia is increasingly wary of standing by India when China’s interests point in the other direction. Russia’s economy being half the size of China and the country losing a net 800,000 people per year (before the pandemic hit), it is not likely that Russia will either be able to get out of this dependence or forge closer ties with India. Russia, for all intents and purposes, is not very different from Pakistan in terms of its reliance on China for a range of vital goods and services. China, on the other hand, finds Russia’s geopolitical clout and weapons expertise handy.
This reduces Indian leverage in an increasingly bipolar world. The last time there was bipolarism, India could play footsie with both USSR and USA. This time, given the conflicts in Galwan Valley and indeed along the length and breadth of the LAC, it is not likely that India can realistically side with China and still expect to exert influence in Asia. This makes her the travelling companion of the USA, if not a close friend. The compulsion for India is more than it is for the US, even though it is true that US cannot find an alternative of India in South and South East Asia that has such deep interests and geopolitical heft to counter China. Enter the Quad.
But India needs to look beyond her immediate boundaries as well. China is busy establishing a string of client states across the world which are dependent on Chinese capital and companies. This needs to be effectively countered to ensure that a second Cold War does not erupt with the US and China using their proxies to wage war. Given the demographic imperatives of China, one can assume that China would want to establish as much dependence upon herself as possible so that once her military power wanes, she can continue to milk these dependencies to maintain her position. India cannot afford to sit idle as countries as diverse as Nepal, Congo and Russia move steadily closer to China.
However, little can be achieved purely by military posturing. In today’s world, military posturing is only so effective as the engines behind that posturing – the economy. India must get her economy in top shape and running well so that she can seek and bridge the gap between China and herself. China’s demographic difficulties should aid India, since India still has an abundant working age population. However, the more we delay such expansion, the more we can expect that the gap would become unbridgeable.
This ties in with the second requirement – preparing for our own China moment. Sometime in the 2030s or 2040s, our own population would have greyed to the point where we too would have to rely on either past glories or immigration to keep propping ourselves up on the world stage. China is desperate to chalk up as much influence and glory as possible while her sun still shines. In our case, we have gradually moved into China’s shade. This does not mean, of course, that we begin aggressively creating client states and economies the way the String of Pearls envisages.
However, unless we can provide support to countries who are looking for alternatives to China’s dominance, we would have missed our opportunities. For instance, we stayed out of the RCEP led by China, but we have yet to come up with an alternative that would pivot the regional economies towards India. In sheer economic terms, we do not have the economic clout to give out loans and funds on China’s scale, but given India’s history of cooperation and support dating back to the days of NAM, India should dip into the storewell of goodwill and draw out some economic linkages that would serve her well in her own old age.
Finally, we should accept that we are growing old. Our rhetoric continues to date to the 1970s and the thesis of population explosion. This despite it being suggested that India’s schoolgoing population has peaked and no matter how politically unpalatable, we should begin consolidating schools and eventually, colleges. We should strengthen our social security system and provide greater facilities to the elderly. This, especially since children or no children, the elderly are increasingly left to their own devices and faculties to survive in this world. While doing so, we must aggressively address the gender skew and the geographic TFR skew to ensure that declines – as and when they take place – are even and gradual. We should also focus specifically on medical facilities and old-age care.
A lot of this sits in the realm of must and should. Given India’s track record, I am not particularly hopeful that we would achieve what almost no country in the world has managed – gracefully transition to old age. Inevitably, countries keep harping about population booms until the country has more old people than kids, more retirement homes than schools and more pension claims that taxes being paid. However, countries like Japan (probably only Japan) have managed to transition to an aged society gradually. It is to be seen how China manages her own transition. However, we cannot wait for China since by the time China does transition, the silver on our scalps will be too visible to take the measures we can take now.
Hence, to secure our own future and ensure that our country and the world comes to be something we would like to see in our old age, we must act now.