China’s population shrinks for the 7th straight year

Efforts to push women to have babies are failing

HONG KONG — China’s ruling Communist Party is facing a national emergency. To fix it, the party wants more women to have more babies.

It has offered them sweeteners, like cheaper housing, tax benefits, and cash. It has also invoked patriotism, calling on them to be “good wives and mothers.”

The efforts aren’t working. Chinese women have been shunning marriage and babies at such a rapid pace that China’s population in 2023 shrank for the second straight year, accelerating the government’s sense of crisis over the country’s rapidly aging population and its economic future.

China said Wednesday that 9.02 million babies were born in 2023, down from 9.56 million in 2022 and the seventh year in a row that the number has fallen. Taken together with the number of people who died during the year — 11.1 million — China has more older people than anywhere else in the world, a number that is rising rapidly. China’s total population was 1,409,670,000 at the end of 2023, a decline of 2 million people, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.

The shrinking and aging population worries Beijing because it is draining China of the working-age people it needs to power the economy. The demographic crisis, which arrived sooner than nearly anyone expected, is already straining weak and underfunded health care and pension systems.

China hastened the problem with its one-child policy, which helped to push the birthrate down over several decades. The rule also created generations of young only-child girls who were given an education and employment opportunities — a cohort that turned into empowered women who now view Beijing’s efforts as pushing them back into the home.

Xi Jinping, China’s top leader, has long talked about the need for women to return to more traditional roles in the home. He recently urged government officials to promote a “marriage and childbearing culture” and to influence what young people think about “love and marriage, fertility and family.”

But experts said the efforts lacked any attempt to address one reality that shaped women’s views about parenting: deep-seated gender inequality. The laws that are meant to protect women and their property and to ensure they are treated equally have failed them.

“Women still don’t feel sure enough to have children in our country,” said Rashelle Chen, a social media professional from the southern province of Guangdong.

Chen, 33, has been married for five years and said she didn’t intend to have a baby.