China’s birthrate still falling

SHANGHAI: China’s birth rate in several regions, including the capital Beijing, fell again in 2018, the official China Daily said yesterday, despite government efforts to encourage couples to have more children.

Alarmed by the rapid ageing of its population, China relaxed its controversial ‘‘onechild policy’’ in 2016, allowing all couples to have two children instead of just one.

The change has failed to reverse what demographers say is a longterm trend of falling birth rates fuelled by growing prosperity and concerns about the high cost of raising children.

Beijing’s birth rate fell to 8.24 per 1000 people in 2018 compared to 9.06 in the previous year, China Daily said, citing figures from local authorities.

In the financial capital Shanghai, the birth rate dropped to 7.2 per 1000, from 8.1 in 2017.

Beijing’s total population fell for a second straight year in 2018, dropping 170,000 to 21.54 million people, though the decline could also be due to new policies aimed at shifting ‘‘noncapital functions’’ out of the city, China Daily said.

The birth rate in Liaoning, a rustbelt province where the population has dropped in recent years due to an exodus of young people, fell to 6.39 per 1000, from 6.49 in 2017.

China recorded 15.23 million births last year, down 2 million from 2017 and the second consecutive annual decline, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS)

Marriage rates are also falling throughout China, with the ratio of newlyregistered marriages in the total population down to 0.72% last year from 0.99% in 2013, NBS data showed.

China’s ageing problem was on the minds of delegates to the annual session of parliament this month, where some called for radical new measures to encourage new births.

Think tanks expect China’s population to peak at 1.4 billion in 2029 and then begin an ‘‘unstoppable’’ decline that could reduce the workforce by as many as 200 million people by the middle of the century. — Reuters