Top China state think tank sees population shrinking by 2027
ATOP Chinese research institution projected the population could start shrinking as soon as 2027—three years earlier than expected—underscoring growth concerns in the world’s second-largest economy.
A report by the state-run Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) said the country’s population would start declining within eight years if the birth rate held steady at 1.6 children per woman. The population—at 1.39 billion in 2017, and the world’s largest— could fall to 1.172 billion by 2065, according to the report released on Thursday.
The estimate was one of a flurry of alarming demographic projections spurring debate about the impact of China’s restrictive birth limits on the country’s long-term growth prospects. The China Times newspaper cited two demographers last week saying that the country’s total of number of births probably fell below 15 million last year— a figure that would speed the population drop beyond even the updated CASS projections.
The forecasts were circulated on social-media platforms including Weibo, leading users to question if policy-makers had been too optimistic in assuming a baby boom would follow China’s 2016 policy change allowing parents to have as many as two children, instead of one. China is slated to release official birth estimates for 2018 on January 21.
In August, China’s parliament removed “family planning” policies from the latest draft of a revised civil code slated for adoption in 2020, a signal population control measures would eventually be eliminated. The State Council, China’s cabinet, has commissioned research on the repercussions of ending the roughly four-decadeold policy and intends to enact the change nationwide, Bloomberg reported in May, citing people familiar with the matter.
“The two-child policy fell short of expectations, and the effect of accumulated fertility desires has faded,” China Evergrande Group’s chief economist Ren Zeping said on his official WeChat account on Tuesday, calling for an immediate end of birth limits to boost the fertility rate. A figure of 15 million births would be the third-lowest total since the People’s Republic of China was founded in 1949, he Yafu, one of the demographers cited by China Times, told Bloomberg News. It would only exceed 1960 and 1961, when the country was hit by natural disasters and famine.
On Thursday, the Southern Metropolis Daily newspaper reported new births last year were expected to range from 15 million to 16 million, the lowest since 2011, citing an official researcher affiliated with the National health Commission—which sets China’s population policies. The National health Commission didn’t reply to a fax seeking comment.