«researchers from Victoria University in Australia and the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences predicted that China will have just 525 million people by the end of the century. That’s down from their previous forecast of 597 million and a precipitous drop from 1.4 billion now.»
«One factor missing from Song’s population math was human behavior. The government’s sometimes brutal enforcement, including forced abortions and sterilizations, as well as decadeslong propaganda about the benefits of having a small family, left a lasting one-child mindset. The modeling also failed to take into account the traditional preference for sons. If couples could only have one child, they would prefer to have a boy.
Young women are now at the core of China’s demographic dilemma. They are increasingly reluctant to have children—and there are fewer of them every year.»

