1/N A thread on China's demography crisis.
2/N 1-6-18-27 My paternal grandfather has 6 children, 18 grand kids, and 27 great grand kids. My generation was the hardest hit with the one child policy. This is the pattern for my maternal grandfather(1-4-7-11). It generally mirrors the birth per women trend charts. 
3/N But does US/China has demography crisis? In 20 years, maybe, US/China old age dependency ratio will reach CURRENT level in Japan. I say MAYBE because that forecasting model is highly uncertain. Even a little bit change of fertility rate could substantially change outcome.
4/N Do you remember last 20 years of all those ominous articles on when baby boomers started retiring, there will be a permanent shift down in US equity valuation because there will not have enough people to buy equity?
5/N Comfort for economists, there is another group of social scientists who have worse forecasting track record: demographers and population experts. In the last 200 years, they have been wrong wrong wrong. Ominous UN China demography crisis? UN projecting 50/80 years ahead
6/N In US universities, there are many population research centers that were established in 1960s. Fear gets you government grant money real quick. It's better to read science fiction than those 50-yr ahead forecast of consumption, investment and savings.
7/N Chinese women birth rate varies greatly across groups. The women who work closer to the state-owned companies and institutions have less children than women who have more freedom working in private businesses (SOE workers have different retirement plans from exSOEs)
8/N Last two years US/China new births were falling off a clip. But beware of charts that projects population 30 years ahead. Majority of women would like to have 2-3 children. That wouldn't lead any country into any demography crisis, unless government wants to interfere again
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