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China Needs More Children -- And So Do We
Townhall.com ^ | November 3, 2015 | Phyllis Schlafly

Posted on 11/03/2015 11:59:29 AM PST by Kaslin

It made front-page headlines around the world when China's Communist Party announced the end of its notorious one-child policy. Imposed by Chinese dictator Deng Xiaoping in the late 1970s, the one-child limit has been ruthlessly enforced with forced abortion, infanticide, sterilization, and heavy fines on families that dared to have a second child.

As a result of that vast experiment in social engineering, China created an unnatural society with 150 million only children without siblings, cousins, uncles or aunts. Due to sex selection, some 50 million more males than females were born -- meaning there are 50 million men who can never marry or start their own families.

Don't assume that China is becoming a free society, or that its Communist rulers concede they were violating fundamental human rights. A new two-child policy will continue to be enforced by the same apparatus requiring every family to apply for and receive permission to have a child, with severe penalties for noncompliance.

The policy was changed because China is running out of people to maintain its economic growth. After 35 years of a very low birth rate, China has created a demographic time bomb in which the aging population in need of care is growing much faster than the population of young working people who can support them.

Believe it or not, the working-age population of China, the world's most populous nation, has already been falling for several years. In the foreseeable future, a fourth to a third of China's huge population will be over 60 years old and in need of support by younger people, but there will only be two workers for each retiree.

Does any of this sound familiar? It's the same story in our own country, as Social Security and Medicare groan beneath the weight of too many retirees supported by too few working adults. The percentage of Americans who work peaked 15 years ago and has declined almost every month since then.

As Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., a powerful member of the House Budget Committee, explained on C-SPAN last week: "The baby boom generation didn't have nearly as many kids as their parents did, and they are living a lot longer. And so they are drawing more money out than they (or their children) paid in."

Or, as Senator Rand Paul, R-Ky., said in the CNBC presidential debate, "After the war we had all of these kids, the baby boomers. Now we're having smaller families. We used to have 16 workers for one retiree; now you have three."

During the post-World War II baby boom, when I had my six children, most Americans got married in their early twenties and the average family had three to four children. Now the average age of first marriage has risen to almost 30, and the average family has only two children.

A population that merely replaces itself (two parents having two children) doesn't generate enough savings to support those two parents into a ripe old age. A single working person doesn't pay enough into Social Security and Medicare to support his own retirement; the system has always depended on having several younger working adults making contributions to support each retired person.

Listening to Republican presidential candidates, we hear a lot of talk about "economic growth" as the way to save Social Security and Medicare without bankrupting the nation. The Chinese Communists, facing a similar problem of reduced economic growth in an aging population, have decided that what really needs to grow is the size of their families.

Jeb Bush has promised to double America's growth rate to four percent, partly by giving a special tax break to induce married women to enter (or remain in) the paid labor force. That's the wrong policy if you realize, as China's leaders do, that more young people are needed to sustain the economy of the future.

Most women who marry and have a family leave the labor force during some part of their lives, and we should be glad they do, even if their lifetime earnings suffer as a result. A policy that expects women to remain in the full-time labor force, pursuing a lifelong career of full-time work, may help to close the pay gap between men and women, but it will mean fewer children.

A feminist reporter for Bloomberg Business set out to find where women's participation in the labor force is lowest and the male-female pay gap is the largest. She found that place in Utah, and specifically in the medium-sized cities of Provo and Ogden, which are about an hour's drive from Salt Lake City.

The reporter was shocked to find that in Utah, only 52.8 percent of mothers with young children are in the labor force, compared to 95.5 percent of fathers -- "the biggest gap in the nation." A University of Utah demographer said, "By every major metric, we're about two generations behind the nation."

Family-friendly Utah, with the nation's highest birth rate, also boasts the highest economic growth rate. The best way to improve the economy is to strengthen the family.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial
KEYWORDS:

1 posted on 11/03/2015 11:59:30 AM PST by Kaslin
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To: Kaslin

We need more “natural born” children. No reason to import them.


2 posted on 11/03/2015 12:01:42 PM PST by glorgau
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To: Kaslin

We need American babies. We don’t need to import baby factories from the middle east.


3 posted on 11/03/2015 12:02:01 PM PST by I want the USA back (Media: completely irresponsible. Complicit in the destruction of this country)
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To: Kaslin

Dare I say that Medicare and social security was a bad idea in the first place. One reason......you cannot guarantee there will be enough people to pay into it. People need to plan for their own retirement and healthcare. Kids need to take care of aging parents. There are a few exceptions, but most of us do not want the inconvenience and sacrifice of planning and caring for family or friends without family. Another problem is mismanagement of the funds. No guarantee that we would have a scrupulous governing body infinitum to manage and disperse the funds. The American people are to blame for this boondoggle. I hope Mrs. Schafly doesn’t think its every child bearing couple’s responsibility to have more than two kids simply to fund these foolish social programs. She probably doesn’t, but it kinda sounds like she does.


4 posted on 11/03/2015 12:13:59 PM PST by AIL
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To: Kaslin

Bottom Line: We mere mortal humans are not smart enough to figure out who should be born, and who should not.


5 posted on 11/03/2015 12:17:05 PM PST by Buckeye McFrog
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To: I want the USA back

“We need American babies. We don’t need to import baby factories from the middle east.”

We also don’t need to import baby factories south of our border.

In Romans, it says homosexuality is a judgment on a nation.

I am convinced that our openness and desire to bring in massive amounts of illegal immigrants and refugees to fill this void in our country is a direct result of our legalized satanic abortion industry.

Since Roe v Wade there has been at least 50 million babies killed through abortion. Had we not had abortion, many of these babies would have grown up by now, with many more growing up, and would be in society and assimilated.

Instead, we import refugees and allow illegal immigration to fill this void. And with this we get all the corruption, murder, rapes, etc., that go along with this. And even worse, with the muslim refugees, we are importing our own potential captors.

“Minneapolis Mayor Betsy Hodges, along with seventeen other U.S. mayors, sent a letter to President Obama last Thursday saying that their cities are willing to welcome more Syrian refugees.”
http://alphanewsmn.com/2015/09/mayor-hodges-to-obama-minneapolis-will-take-more-syrian-refugees/


Romans 1:
21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.

24 Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25 They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.

26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. 27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.

....


6 posted on 11/03/2015 12:17:41 PM PST by ForYourChildren (Christian Education [ RomanRoadsMedia.com - Classical Christian Approach to Homeschool ])
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To: glorgau

I’m working on it as hard as I can, but some of the women won’t cooperate.


7 posted on 11/03/2015 12:19:23 PM PST by morphing libertarian
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To: AIL
Do you realize that senior citizen paid into social security when they were younger and working? They also paid into medicare and are paying premiums for it which is deducted from their social security check.

I don't think you know what you are talking about.

8 posted on 11/03/2015 12:22:50 PM PST by Kaslin (He needed the ignorant to reelect him, and he got them. Now we all have to pay the consequenses)
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To: Kaslin

You get more of what you subsidize, and our government provides substantial subsidies for non-work. Medicare and Social Security subsidize non-work by people over 65/67, in the sense that in many cases the beneficiary will receive more than he contributed. SS Disability benefits subsidize non-work by those who are able to qualify as recipients. Welfare subsidizes non-work by recipients. Student loans and grants subsidize non-work by young adults. Compulsory schooling laws do not subsidize but compel non-work by most people under 18.

All this is a drag on the potential economic productivity of the country, not only in the number of people who are not working, but in the fact that the payments to the non-working have to come from those who are working (or earning through investment).

On the other hand, there are some subsidies for working, such as the child-care tax credit. This is an incentive for some mothers of young children to hold paying jobs when they otherwise would not.


9 posted on 11/03/2015 12:24:19 PM PST by Tax-chick (You have 25 days to get ready for the Advent Kitteh!)
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To: I want the USA back; glorgau

I agree 100 percent


10 posted on 11/03/2015 12:24:40 PM PST by Kaslin (He needed the ignorant to reelect him, and he got them. Now we all have to pay the consequenses)
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To: I want the USA back
Leftism increases with population density. The ideal population for the USA is below the current level. If the population were to decrease the nation would become more conservative, as has happened in Russia.

There's a reason the human body stops growing when it reaches adulthood. Growing without end is not desirable.

11 posted on 11/03/2015 12:25:11 PM PST by Reeses (A journey of a thousand miles begins with a government pat down.)
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To: Kaslin
Due to sex selection, some 50 million more males than females were born -- meaning there are 50 million men who can never marry or start their own families.

In other words, they're perfect soldiers.

12 posted on 11/03/2015 12:27:33 PM PST by dfwgator
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To: Kaslin
that senior citizen paid into social security when they were younger and working? They also paid into medicare and are paying premiums for it which is deducted from their social security check.

That is true. However, in the aggregate, Social Security and Medicare, from their inception, have paid out more than the amounts paid in. That was the basic design of these programs from their inception.

The alternative would be privately-funded, privately-owned retirement savings and lifetime health insurance.

13 posted on 11/03/2015 12:32:21 PM PST by Tax-chick (You have 25 days to get ready for the Advent Kitteh!)
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To: dfwgator

Much of the Islamic world also has a surplus population of young men, due to both sex-selection infanticide and polygamy. This does not result in a stable and productive society.


14 posted on 11/03/2015 12:43:06 PM PST by Tax-chick (You have 25 days to get ready for the Advent Kitteh!)
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To: ForYourChildren

100 U.S. cities beg Obama for more Muslim refugees
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3355979/posts


15 posted on 11/03/2015 12:59:38 PM PST by ForYourChildren (Christian Education [ RomanRoadsMedia.com - Classical Christian Approach to Homeschool ])
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To: Kaslin

Like all ponzi schemes eventually they fail.


16 posted on 11/03/2015 1:11:14 PM PST by joshua c (Please dont feed the liberals)
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To: Kaslin

Please note that I said it should never have been implemented in the first place and I gave a couple reasons why I came to my conclusion. That was the point of my response. Please reread and then if you wish we can have a respectful and spirited discussion and see what conclusions we both come to.


17 posted on 11/03/2015 1:28:31 PM PST by AIL
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To: Kaslin

A labor shortage would cause wage inflation and cost/push inflation. I do not see any of that.


18 posted on 11/03/2015 1:30:28 PM PST by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn.)
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To: Kaslin

“Most women who marry and have a family leave the labor force during some part of their lives”

Usually these women drop out to take care of their elderly relatives. That chore is normally a decade long task.


19 posted on 11/03/2015 1:57:52 PM PST by B4Ranch (Trump is not our candidate, he is our Special Forces unit.)
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To: Kaslin
"By every major metric, we're about two generations behind the nation."

When the trend is downhill, it's better to be behind.

20 posted on 11/03/2015 2:03:45 PM PST by Gil4 (And the trees are all kept equal by hatchet, ax and saw)
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