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The zero child policy
Oh my god that's horrible and kind of funny even though it's super fucked up.
“True enough, there are such things as laughless jokes, what Freud called gallows humor. There are real-life situations so hopeless that no relief is imaginable.
While we were being bombed in Dresden sitting in a cellar with our arms over our heads in case the ceiling fell, one soldier said as though he were a duchess in a mansion on a cold and rainy night, 'I wonder what the poor people are doing tonight.' Nobody laughed, but we were still all glad he said it. At least we were still alive! He proved it.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, A Man Without a Country
I really should feel sorrier than I do for laughing out loud at this
I'll join you to hell where we're definitely gonna end up after this
The hit in the 11-14 demographic is rather concerning. It's before the big wave of gaokao prep really hits (and thus precedes the job search stress), so it's a really concerning demographic without a clear root cause.
I think you hit the nail right on the head, the unrelenting academic stress
But that's not really hitting the 11-14 demographic that hard.
Kids talk. Stressed kids push their stress to whomever. It is tragic, but doesn't seem shocking that the impact would be earlier. (I have zero insight into China.)
Yeah, but that's the entire reason China splits off high school into age 15-18.
It went from 0.2/100k to 0.8/100k. In aggregate, that's 800 people? I wonder how much of that is due to improved reporting given the lapse of the one-child policy, though.
Suicides averaged over all age groups declined by 5% in the same period, so it can't just be better reporting. Also that's an aggregate increase of about 6000, not 800.
Better reporting of children in particular because of the lapse of the one-child policy? For a decent amount of time China had "ghost children" that weren't reported to the government (though you'll find no reports on this from Western media, it's a pretty well-established truth in some Chinese circles).
Ah, that's possible.
If it jumped 10% annually since 2010 wouldn't that make it 130% or am I bad at maths
10% above its current rate.
So if 2% of children are killing themselves an increase of ten percent would be 2.2%.
Nice rule of thumb: 7% increase per year means doubling in 10 years.
Lol. It's 1.1^(2023-2010)
and when china needs its youth the most
This is the best summary I could come up with:
China has seen an increase in suicides among young people in recent years, prompting researchers to call for a special program to help them deal with academic pressure.
The increase is small in absolute numbers yet it contrasts with a decline of 5.3% annually in the 2010-2021 period among all age groups in the country, a drop the researchers said was due to a nationwide mental health program.
The researchers called on the government to prioritize developing programs targeting children and adolescents that adopt best practices from abroad and allow for the early identification of suicidal behavior.
Earlier this year, the apparent suicide of a boarding school student named Hu Xinyu gained widespread attention in China, both because the 15-year-old boy had expressed concern beforehand about his grades and how the police handled their investigation.
Also, many people took to Chinese social media Thursday to express sadness over the death of Hong Kong-born singer and songwriter Coco Lee.
The researchers at the Center for Disease Control & Prevention also warned that the widespread belief among parents and teachers that getting good scores trumps anything else risks obscuring mental health issues plaguing children.
The original article contains 402 words, the summary contains 186 words. Saved 54%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
The CCP has a LOT to answer for.
Such as?
This is where the number of babies born hasn't risen significantly.
this post was submitted on 04 Oct 2023
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