such a shift in demographics will bring a lot of difficult societal problems that come with emerging Middle Class who will want more housing and more freedoms
Social problems mostly 4:2:1 depedency ratios, i.e. elder care. Hence PRC pouring a lot of resource into this sector, but TBH unless automation catches up, they're just going to follow JP model - old people are going to be minimally taken care of, and simply die unceremoniously while most of workforce busy competing to pay attention. Helps that cohort is part of the incredibly poor with high savings rate, i.e. they are expected to take care of themselves and it doesn't take much too for the state to take care of them - perks of old before rich is old don't have rich expectations. Overall PRC is still resourced to increase QoL among poor old vs west trying to sustain onerous but expected social nets for rich old.
IMO housing will sort itself out if you consider reverse of 4:2:1 is 4 households / wealth transfers to the 1. Every married couple and their kids eventually has access to ~4-8+ housing units. Hence IMO even TFR will sort itself out once housing pressure / availability disspates by virtue demand decreasing due to less people. Of course transition can be very difficult/painful/messy, i.e. demand in T1/2/3 cities still going to be high, a lot of freed up housing is going to be rural, like all the abandoned villages in JP. Maybe remote work + cottage culture will finally pick up in PRC once most families inherit some rural land to chill on. TBH I can imagine PRC life being incredibly more relaxed once less people compete for resources.
As for freedoms, depends on which kind. I think most will be satiated with increased material prosperity / fully automated luxury communism meme conveniences. There's plenty of Chinese diasphora in the west jaded with western political process, and I wager that trend with continue with how things are progressing. Plenty of international students with first hand experience become more pro CCP. Ultimately people are going to decide if they want freedom to talk shit about unresponsive governments that get nothing done or crusing along in their self driving cars enabled by surveillance state.
And let's not pretend immigration driven demographic growth strategies are not bringing their share of social problems... in fact it's probably one of the largest sources of domestic instability being interrogated by such countries right now.
I've been all over China and it's true current generations are only all too happy to be rich and quite often obscenely rich.
They have very real understanding that all of it could be unilaterally taken away by the state at any time, so even if they flash their wealth they keep their mouths shut. At the same time many do buy in to state propoganda.
But what of their children who are born into comfort of middle class and are less materialistic and willing to fight to justice?
maxglute|1 year ago
IMO housing will sort itself out if you consider reverse of 4:2:1 is 4 households / wealth transfers to the 1. Every married couple and their kids eventually has access to ~4-8+ housing units. Hence IMO even TFR will sort itself out once housing pressure / availability disspates by virtue demand decreasing due to less people. Of course transition can be very difficult/painful/messy, i.e. demand in T1/2/3 cities still going to be high, a lot of freed up housing is going to be rural, like all the abandoned villages in JP. Maybe remote work + cottage culture will finally pick up in PRC once most families inherit some rural land to chill on. TBH I can imagine PRC life being incredibly more relaxed once less people compete for resources.
As for freedoms, depends on which kind. I think most will be satiated with increased material prosperity / fully automated luxury communism meme conveniences. There's plenty of Chinese diasphora in the west jaded with western political process, and I wager that trend with continue with how things are progressing. Plenty of international students with first hand experience become more pro CCP. Ultimately people are going to decide if they want freedom to talk shit about unresponsive governments that get nothing done or crusing along in their self driving cars enabled by surveillance state.
And let's not pretend immigration driven demographic growth strategies are not bringing their share of social problems... in fact it's probably one of the largest sources of domestic instability being interrogated by such countries right now.
wordpad25|1 year ago
They have very real understanding that all of it could be unilaterally taken away by the state at any time, so even if they flash their wealth they keep their mouths shut. At the same time many do buy in to state propoganda.
But what of their children who are born into comfort of middle class and are less materialistic and willing to fight to justice?