中国的家庭结构革命：巨大的人口盲点（英）

Nicholas Eberstadt and Ashton VerderyFebruary 2023A M E R I C A N E N T E R P R I S E I N S T I T U T EChina’s Revolution in Family StructureA Huge Demographic Blind Spot with Surprises Ahead China’s Revolution in Family StructureA Huge Demographic Blind Spot with Surprises Ahead Nicholas Eberstadt and Ashton VerderyFEBRUARY 2023A M E R I C A N E N T E R P R I S E I N S T I T U T E© 2023 by the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research. All rights reserved. The American Enterprise Institute (AEI) is a nonpartisan, nonprofit, 501(c)(3) educational organization and does not take institutional posi-tions on any issues. The views expressed here are those of the author(s).American Enterprise Institute1789 Massachusetts Avenue, NWWashington, DC 20036www.aei.org 1Executive SummaryResearchers and decision makers in Beijing and the West pay close attention to many major Chinese population trends, including its pronounced sub-replacement fertility, its shrinking manpower totals, and its rapid population aging. Yet one momentous demographic trend in China has as yet attracted almost no interest: the transformation of the country’s family structure.The reason for this oversight is obvious. Beijing, like other modern governments, simply does not collect information on family structure or kinship networks—so the regime does not think about the issue and its implications. In this report, we model simulations of China’s past and prospective pat-terns and trends in kinship networks. We then use the results from these simulations to analyze, assess, and speculate about their implications for China’s social, economic, and political future. We believe this is the first study to think through the far-reaching implications of the results of demographic and kinship network modeling for a national population of a major economy and great power. Our simulations show that the Chinese family is about to undergo a radical and historically unprecedented transition, as extended kinship net-works atrophy across the nation and close blood relatives disappear alto-gether for many. This fraying of the extended family and atomization of the nuclear family come at an almost exquisitely inopportune moment in China: Social needs are soaring alongside the rising tally of elderly depen-dents and the shrinking ranks of those on whom the elderly can rely—two social indicators poised for inescapable collision in the years immediately ahead. Indeed, the withering of the Chinese family as we now know it will make for new and unfamiliar challenges at every stage in the life cycle, for both Chinese people and the Chinese state. 2 CHINA’S REVOLUTION IN FAMILY STRUCTUREOur simulations revealed several key findings.• An unexpected finding: In terms of sheer quantity, Chinese networks of blood kin were never before nearly as thick as at the start of the 21st century. Due to dramatic improvements in survival, men and women in their 30s today (2020) have on average fi