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On November 20, 2021, the China Statistical Yearbook 2021 released the relevant population data of the mainland in 2020. According to statistics, last year, the mainland's population birth rate was 8.52 ‰, which fell below 10 ‰ for the first time, and after four consecutive years of decline, it hit a new historical low in the mainland in the past 10 years. Last year, 2.8 million fewer people were born on the mainland under the epidemic.
According to this downward trend, in a few years there will be an era of negative population growth, not only the decline in the number of young people, but also with aging and low birthrate, all countries around the world have such a trend, and some small countries and cities are not so lucky and may disappear completely.
As a large country with a population of 1.4 billion, under the influence of the epidemic last year, the "population trilemma" problem broke out, and there are three major crises lurking behind it: the first labor shortage, the second marriage operation difficulty, and the third pension difficulty.
Labor shortages
Taking Japan, a small populous country, as a lesson for the past, they have been experiencing negative population growth for 13 consecutive years.
Based on this, The Japanese management master Kenichi Omae wrote a book called "Low-Desire Society", in which the concept of "low-desire society" was first proposed as a reference for the harm of negative population growth.
In the mainland, the typical characteristic is that young people do not want to desperately earn money, and under various pressures, they begin to "learn helplessness", the phenomenon of "lying flat", or are unwilling to take risks, do not deposit directly in the moonlight every month, and do not plan for repaying mortgages and car loans.
Even unwilling to get married and have children, barely raising offspring has also appeared "new style of nibbling on the old", including the "funeral" culture and "Buddhist" culture of previous years, this series of Internet hot words are inseparable from the low-desire society.
Especially under the epidemic last year, the pressure and emotions that people usually accumulate have erupted in a short period of time, and phenomena such as internal involvement, overwork death, and suicide have emerged in an endless stream.
To a certain extent, labor shortages have been caused, and some young people have serious psychological barriers, and people's needs have changed from self-realization to the most basic physiological security needs.
In Wuhan and other representative cities under the epidemic, dignity is not worth mentioning in the face of death, and after facing the life and death of their loved ones, many people are discouraged, stress trauma, and choose to greatly reduce their life expectations to seek a meager sense of security.
Echoing Schopenhauer's statement: If you don't want to be too miserable, the safest way is not to expect to be happy.
In our relatively safe areas, we are also subtly affected by the concept of collectivity, and the workload in the psychological field has increased rapidly in the past two years to help people tide over difficulties, but major problems still need to be rectified by the state.
Thankfully, based on the traditional culture of the Chinese nation of "bearing the burden of humiliation, being industrious and brave", this collective subconscious of hard-working and hard-working still affects most young people.
Just like last year's post-disaster reconstruction, doctors and nurses have swore to die to fight against death, which has also touched countless people, so even if a low-desire society may strike, the ambition and motivation of China's young people will not disappear.
High divorce rate
Under the epidemic last year, divorce registration in Shenzhen was on the hot search, and according to previous data, the total number of divorces generally does not exceed one-third of the total number of marriages.
At the time, however, the total number of divorces in Shenzhen reached 84% of the total number of marriages. Due to limited activities, there is less direct interaction between people and less communication, especially in love and marriage and childbearing activities.
In fact, in the past decade, the divorce rate in the mainland has been on the rise, and the epidemic is only a flashpoint.
From a psychological point of view, high divorce rates are related to the rising status of women, and feminism has begun to rise in recent years.
As we all know, women raising a child will cause irreversible harm to the body, before the dancer Yang Liping in the social platform released a life video under a high-like comment: a woman's biggest failure is not a child, even if you are beautiful and excellent can not escape the ravages of time.
The comment was quickly criticized by the majority of female netizens, "having children is a woman's lifelong obligation" the saying has become outdated in modern society, women want to love themselves more, pursue more freedom, and having children will cause huge fertility costs and pay opportunity costs.
In a survey by The Observation of Women's Fertility Concept in China, "How do you view the phenomenon of women actively not having children?" Among the options, 43.9% of people believe that "women are independent and free, and the positive impact is relatively large", and 42.7% said that they "have no opinion".
Among the "reasons why you want to have children" option, the support rate for outdated concepts such as "tasks that women must complete", "passing on the generations", and "raising children and preventing the elderly" is only about 10%. This shows that the ideas of contemporary women are becoming more and more independent.
Pension crisis
Under family planning, the population has decreased, and many young people now do not want to have children, and there will be a serious shortage of the working population in the future, corresponding to the arrival of a deep aging society.
Only children are also anxious, from the calculation of the number of only children and the elderly, by 2050, about every 2 young people will have to raise 4 or even 8 elderly people, which shows a serious mismatch in the number.
And not all only children are willing to fulfill the obligation of supporting the elderly, and many young people practice the "new style of nibbling on the old".
This is related to the education of many one-child birth families, who cannot bear the pressure of this age in a doting environment.
The elderly do not expect their children to retire, and the pension fund they have prepared has also been hollowed out, and the young people have spent all the pension money of their parents, resulting in more difficulties for the elderly to provide for the elderly.
The smaller population seems to be a good thing in the short term, the same natural resources are less competitive and less fierce, the wage income of workers has entered a period of rapid growth, and the economic structure has been adjusted.
However, in the long run, it may not be a good thing, production and consumption have been greatly reduced, which is very unfavorable to the mainland's urbanization construction and social development. However, this is the embodiment of social progress, people are paying more and more attention to their own development and the balance between survival and reality, whether it is young people who choose not to marry or infertile young people represent their great expectations for whether future generations have a good life.
Behind the crisis is vitality, and the progress of society requires constantly changing thinking and resolving contradictions, and there is no need to worry too much.
Perhaps the sharp decline in population is a wake-up call for us, after all, once people are scarce, they will appear precious and be truly respected.
- The End -
Author | Tommy
The First Psychological Writing Group | A group of young people who like to look up at the stars
参考资料：Bruk, A., Scholl, S. G., & Bless, H. (2018). Beautiful mess effect: Self–other differences in evaluation of showing vulnerability. Journal of personality and social psychology, 115(2), 192-205