China’s population has declined for the first time in 60 years, with a national birth rate at a record low – 6.77 births per 1,000 women.
The population in 2022 – 1.4118 billion – is down 850,000 from 2021.
China’s birth rate has been declining for years, with a number of policies aimed at slowing the trend.
But seven years after scrapping the one-child policy, it has entered what one official described as a “period of negative population growth”.
The birth rate in 2022 was also down from 7.52 in 2021, according to China’s National Bureau of Statistics, which released the data on Tuesday.
The number of deaths from first births also increased last year. China recorded its highest death rate since 1976 – 7.37 deaths per 1,000 people, up from 7.18 the previous year.
Earlier government data pointed to a demographic crisis, which would shrink China’s labor force in the long run and increase the burden on health care and other social security costs.
The results of the once-a-decade census announced in 2021 show that China’s population is growing at its slowest pace in decades.
Some experts expect China’s population to continue shrinking until 2023.
Yu Xu, principal economist at the Economist Intelligence Unit, said the long-term effects of the pandemic and the recent lockdown could also lead to a decline in the birth rate.
“This trend will continue and will probably worsen post-Covid as high youth unemployment rates and weak income expectations may further delay marriage and childbearing plans,” he said. The number of newborns may decrease.” Meanwhile, he said, the death rate is likely to rise above pre-pandemic levels in 2023 due to nationwide Covid infections. China has seen a spike in infections since abandoning its zero-covid policy last month.
Other East Asian countries – such as Japan and South Korea – have seen shrinking populations.
China’s population trends over the years have been largely shaped by the controversial one-child policy, which was introduced in 1979 to slow population growth.
Families who violated the rules were fined and in some cases even lost their jobs. In a culture that has historically favored boys over girls, the policy has led to forced abortions and a reported decline in the sex ratio since the 1980s.
This policy was abolished in 2016 and married couples were allowed to have two children. In recent years, the Chinese government has offered tax breaks and improved maternal health, among other incentives, to reverse or at least slow the declining birth rate.
But these policies did not lead to a sustained increase in births. Some experts say this is because policies to encourage childbearing have not been accompanied by efforts to ease the burden of childcare, such as more support for working mothers or access to education. .
In October 2022, Chinese President Xi Jinping made increasing the birth rate a priority. Mr Xi told the once-every-five-year Communist Party congress in Beijing that his government would “pursue a proactive national strategy” in response to the country’s growing population.
In addition to encouraging childbearing, China should also consider improving gender equality in households and workplaces, said Basarawan Teravichainen, director of the National University of Singapore’s Center for Family and Population Research. He said that the experiences of the Scandinavian countries have proved that such measures can improve the birth rate.
But some observers believe China’s population decline is not immediately harmful.
Paul Cheung, Singapore’s former chief statistician and now a professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, said China has “too much manpower” and “too much lead time” to deal with the population challenge.
“This is an indication that the Chinese government needs to address this problem. They need to increase productivity, put in much more modern infrastructure and address health care. But they have yet to do so,” he said. are not in a doomsday scenario,” he said.
