The country’s birth rate has fallen to historic levels due to an aging population, an accelerating decline that analysts say could hurt economic growth and put pressure on public finances.
China’s population fell for the first time in more than six decades last year, according to official figures released Tuesday, pointing to a demographic crisis in the world’s most populous country. The year 2022 ended with a population of 1,411 million inhabitants, reported the National Statistics Office (ONE) of Beijing, which represents “a decrease of 0.85 million compared to 2021”: the number of births was 9, 56 million and 10.41 million deaths were registered.
The country’s birth rate has fallen to historic levels due to an aging population, an accelerated decline that analysts say could hurt economic growth and put pressure on public finances. The last time China’s population declined was in 1960, when the country faced the worst famine in its modern history, caused by Mao Zedong’s agricultural policy called the Great Leap Forward.
China in 2016 lifted its strict one-child policy, imposed in the 1980s due to fears of overpopulation. In 2021, instead, it began allowing couples to have up to three children.
But those authorizations have failed to stem the demographic decline. “The population will surely continue to decline in the coming years,” said Zhiwei Zhang of Pinpoint Asset management. “China will not be able to rely on the demographic dividend as a structural driver of economic growth,” he said. “Economic growth will need to depend more on productivity growth, which is driven by government policies.”
News of the population decline quickly trended on Chinese social media, with some people expressing fear for the future of the country. “Without children, the state and the nation have no future,” wrote a user of the social network Weibo, a Chinese version of Twitter. “Having children is a social responsibility,” noted a well-known patriotic “influencer” on Weibo.
But others pointed to the sharp rise in the cost of living and the difficulties of raising children in modern China. “I love my mother but I will never be a mother,” commented one user. Given this, many local authorities launched measures to encourage couples to have children.
For example, the southern megacity of Shenzhen offers a birth bonus and a monthly allowance until the child turns three. A couple having their first baby automatically receives 3,000 yuan ($444), and the figure rises to 10,000 yuan ($1,480) for the third child. The eastern city of Jinan began paying a monthly allowance of 600 yuan for couples having a second child on Jan. 1.
The Chinese population is also “getting used to small families because of decades of one-child policy,” said Xiujian Peng, a researcher at the University of Victoria, Australia. “The Chinese government must find effective policies to promote fertility, otherwise the fertility level will continue to fall,” she added.
Independent demographer He Yafu also points to the “decline in the number of women of childbearing age, which fell by five million per year between 2016 and 2021” as a consequence of the aging of the population. Thus, India could displace China this year as the most populous country in the world, according to the UN.
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