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The necessity of immigration
However, there is one factor that could mitigate this trend: immigration.
Many of the world’s major countries with very low fertility rates rely on international migrants to provide a young workforce — and these young migrants also have more babies than locals.
For example, China has a low foreign-born rate of only 0.1%, while the United States and Germany have nearly 14% and 18%, respectively. Even the East Asian countries of Japan and South Korea have higher foreign-born rates than China, at 2% and 3.7%, respectively.
The Chinese government has tried several times to implement policies to increase the fertility rate, but none of them worked. In fact, demographers also believe that such “birth-encouraging” policies are often ineffective.
But introducing and implementing an active immigration policy will not be easy in China, where China has little experience with immigration issues and where many of the Communist Party’s leaders appear to have a deep-seated belief in racial purity.
The majority of Chinese people may resist immigration. Young Chinese workers The biggest impact of increased immigration would be on China. In the early stages of any policy to encourage large-scale immigration, some Chinese would lose their jobs and need to find work elsewhere. This is especially true for younger workers.
But in general, immigrants are taking jobs that locals dislike, sometimes called “three Ds”: dirty, dangerous and degrading. This is the case in most European countries and the United States.
The alternative would be far more painful for China in the long run. Without an aggressive immigration policy, by the beginning of the next century China would be half its current size and one of the oldest countries in the world—if not the oldest.
Beijing is already facing pressure from these trends to implement pension reforms, but without the influx of young immigrant workers, China’s problems would be even more severe.
Dudley L Poston Jr is a professor of sociology at Texas A&M University. First appearance In conversation.
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