China’s shrinking as birth rate falls
BEIJING: The population of China has fallen for the first time in 60 years, a turn that could mark the start of a longterm decline that would have implications for the country’s economy and for the rest of the world.
The population fell by 850,000 to 1.41175 billion in 2022, from 1.4126 billion a year earlier, according to official figures.
China’s National Bureau of Statistics said 9.56 million people were born in China last year, a drop of nearly 10 per cent from 2021. The national birth rate fell to 6.77 births for every 1,000 women, down from 7.52 in 2021 and the lowest rate since records began in 1949.
Deaths outnumbered births for the first time, contributing to the first overall population decline since the 1960s.
The national death rate last year was 7.37 per 1,000, the highest since 1974 during the Cultural Revolution and contributing to the first population fall since 1961 and a famine in which 30 million people died.
As the population recovered then increased, the Communist Party took drastic steps to control population growth, implementing its infamous one-child policy in 1980. Analysts said the legacy of that measure, which was dropped in 2015, continues.
India will overtake China as the world’s most populous nation at some point this year, the United Nations has predicted. Indeed, given a lack of updated census information, it may have done so already.
The UN expects China’s population to fall to 1.313 billion by 2050 and to below 800 million by the end of the century.
Having permitted families to have three or more children since 2021, President Xi Jinping’s government has moved to encourage more births by extending maternity leave while increasing state subsidies and tax breaks for larger families.
It also is trying to reduce the number of abortions, at present almost ten million a year.