China records 7m fewer childbearing-age women than previous year

The number of Chinese women of childbearing age will decline by about 7 million in 2018 compared to the year before, reaching a historic low after seven consecutive years of declines.

There are 346 million Chinese women of childbearing age (15 to 49 years old) in 2018. The number was calculated based on a population census conducted in 2010, when China had 380 million women of reproductive age, newspaper 21st Century Business Herald reported on Wednesday.

“Many women of reproductive age used to have their first child at the age of 25. However, there are many women who are 30 years old and still unmarried. This directly affects the birth rate,” Ding Jinhong, from East China Normal University, told the newspaper.

More than 7 million families gave birth to their first child in 2017, 2.5 million fewer than in 2016, while the number of second children born in 2017 was 8.8 million, an increase of 1.6 million in comparison with 2016, the newspaper said.

It said that the decline in the number of women of childbearing age will cause a decrease in the number of second children. Government demographers have long been warning about this situation.

Data from the Shaanxi Provincial Bureau of Statistics showed that about 60 percent of families in the province are not willing to have a second child, and the number of women of reproductive age has declined over two years, with an average annual reduction of 140,000.

“The low birth rate is caused by many reasons, so authorities should take comprehensive considerations to develop solutions,” said Wang Guangzhou, a professor at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.