China’s pet population will be close to double that of its young children by 2030 as young Chinese remain unwilling to start new families, Goldman Sachs said in a recent note.

The country’s urban pet population is set to hit over 70 million by the end of the decade, while the number of children 4 and under will dwindle to less than 40 million, according to Goldman Sachs research that cited data from the National Bureau of Statistics.

In 2017, the situation was just the opposite — there were 90 million children ages 4 and under, compared with the urban pet population of around 40 million.

“We expect to see stronger momentum in pet ownership amid a relatively weaker birth rate outlook and higher incremental household pet penetration from the younger generation,” the investment bank’s equity analyst Valerie Zhou wrote.

New births in the country are projected to fall at an average rate of 4.2% until 2030, driven largely by a decline in the population of women ages 20 to 35, and as the younger generation is less inclined to have children, the report said.

Those between the ages of 23 and 33 made up almost half of the pet owners in China as of 2023, according to a China Pet Industry White Paper.

As young Chinese adults opt for fur babies over real babies, the bank expects the country’s pet food market to flourish to a $12 billion industry by 2030. The report also forecasts China’s cat ownership to surpass that of dogs, as the former tend to require less space to raise.

Birth rates are falling across the world as women choose to have fewer children, with some of the largest countries facing declining birth rates as the global population is on course to peak this century.

    • tektite@slrpnk.net
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      3 months ago

      Hmm…one we can blame on the people, the other seems to be the fault of the government. I wonder which it could be!!

  • Zaktor@sopuli.xyz
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    3 months ago

    That seems… not weird at all? Throughout their lives my parents have had 2 children and have had 6 (and counting) cats and dogs. And that’s not counting all the random guinea pigs or snakes or fish we got as kids. Sure, there are plenty of pet-free homes, but you have a narrow window in your life where you can have children, while you can just keep getting pets sequentially until you’re too old to care for them.

  • LarmyOfLone@lemm.ee
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    3 months ago

    Of course the banks are dependent on infinite growth to keep the house of cards from collapsing and complain. That China is stabilizing their birthrate is very good news. But they have to make it weird and talk about fur babies. Yikes.

  • cynthorpe@discuss.online
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    3 months ago

    Well, this is what happens when communism doesn’t work, and the income gap prevents people from living.

    That, and I’m sure climate change and the futility of life all doesn’t help.

    • FantasmaNaCasca@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      “Birth rates are falling across the globe (…)”

      But sure…

      How do you face the fact that both Apple and Samsung, the 2 biggest capitalist phone manufacturers corporations in the world, use workers in China that aren’t owners of the production…

      How is China comunist? One of the biggest states in the world…when a comunist society is supposed to be statless…