Repronews #51: China’s fertility crash

Judging human gene editing; natalist policies rising; Crawford's case for bigger population; Lyman Stone interview; leadership heritability; Charpentier's case for CRISPR crops; Robin Hanson interview

1986 poster promoting the One-Child Policy. Source: chineseposters.net

Welcome to the latest issue of Repronews! Highlights from this week’s edition:

• Repro/genetics

  • Using vulnerability and marginalization as factors to judge and prioritize applications of human gene editing technologies

• Population Policies & Trends

  • Natalist initiatives under Three-Child Policy fail to stem China’s fertility crash

  • Study of 150 countries between 1976 and 2013 finds sharp rise in pronatalist policies (8.7% of countries to 27.4%), with modest impact

  • Jason Crawford on how a larger human population enables greater innovation and diversity

  • Podcast: Razib Khan interviews Lyman Stone on the global birth dearth

• Genetic Studies

  • Danish twin study: genetic influence over whether we have a leadership role increases as we age (20-40% heritable overall)

• Further Learning

  • CRISPR co-developer Emmanuelle Charpentier on why Europe should embrace gene-edited crops

  • Podcast: Robin Hanson on the risks of global monoculture

Repro/genetics

“Beyond the traditional distinctions of genome editing: evaluating a vulnerability framework” (Frontiers in Genome Editing)

• The U.S. presidential bioethics commission’s 1982 Splicing Life report outlined the two distinctions that have orientated much of the normative and legal landscape of human genetic modification ever since:

  • Somatic interventions (i.e., therapies only affecting that person) versus germline (or heritable) interventions (also affecting descendants).

  • Medical versus non-medical (or enhancement) applications.

• These distinctions have been used to ethically prioritize some areas of research and potential applications, such as somatic treatments, while considering others for prohibition, such as germline enhancements.

• The authors point out that somatic interventions may also be done for controversial enhancement purposes (e.g., the enhancement of athletic abilities) while some germline interventions may be done with greater prima facie justification (gene editing eliminate Tay-Sachs disease).

• With new somatic treatments that are generally lauded, issues still arise—such as high cost and lack of access, particularly salient on a global level.

• The authors argue for a framework to judge and prioritize genetic interventions based on vulnerability and marginalization of populations. This could inform calls for effective (global) governance human gene editing technologies.

Population Policies & Trends

“China’s pro-birth policies not yet enough to counter demographic crisis, expert warns” (South China Morning Post)

• Cash subsidies for multiple children are doing little to offset China’s declining fertility rate, a trend with far-reaching economic implications

• A demographer warns that if China’s fertility rate remains on its downward trajectory, eventually six people will die for every newborn.

• “With the current half-hearted incentive policies, not only is it impossible to raise the fertility rate, but even maintaining it at 1.0 seems out of reach,” warned a recent report published by the YuWa Population Research Institute. “Anti-marriage and anti-childbearing sentiments are intensifying, and the pro-birth policies aren’t even enough to counter this downward trend.”

• China’s fertility rate dropped to 1.09 in 2022, according to the China Population and Development Research Centre.

• The total fertility rate in Shanghai, one of China’s wealthiest cities, fell to 0.6 in 2023, according to the municipality.

• Demographers have said it is possible that China’s fertility rate fell below 1.0 in 2023, but the authorities have not provided an official fertility rate for last year.

• South Korea’s experience, where the fertility rate dropped from 1.05 in 2017 to 0.72 in 2023, suggests China could be following a similarly grim trajectory, according Huang Wenzheng, a long-time researcher of China’s demographic issues and a non-resident senior fellow with the Centre for China & Globalisation.

• China and South Korea have among the world’s lowest birth rates, dragged down by high child-rearing costs, intense societal pressures, educational competition, and unaffordable housing.

China pivoted to a Three-Child Policy in 2021. Source: Luo Jie/China Daily

• Last year, China’s population fell for the second year in a row, to 1.401 billion people after a decline of 2.08 million. Only 9.02 million births were reported in China in 2023, the lowest total since records started in 1949.

• National and local governments in China have rolled out pronatalist policies, including cash subsidies, extended maternity and paternity leave, tax breaks, and housing incentives for families with multiple children.

• Hubei’s Jingzhou is among the latest cities to offer cash subsidies to families with multiple children, providing 6,000 yuan ($845) for a second child and 12,000 ($1,690) yuan for a third.

• The subsidies are a drop in the bucket compared to the cost of having children. A YuWa report last year estimated that the average cost of raising a child from birth to 17 years old in China was 485,000 yuan ($68,160), while the cost of raising a child to college graduation was about 627,000 yuan ($88,300).

• The average urban worker in China earned 94,519 yuan ($13,309) a year in 2023.