The country’s birth rate has fallen to historic levels due to an aging population, an accelerated decline that analysts say could hurt economic growth and strain public finances.
China’s population fell last year for the first time in more than six decades, according to official figures released Tuesday, pointing to a demographic crisis in the world’s most populous country. The year 2022 ended with a population of 1,411 million, Beijing’s National Statistics Office (ONE) reported, representing “a drop of 0.85 million from 2021”: births were 9.56 million and 10 .41 million deaths were recorded.
The country’s birth rate has fallen to historic levels due to an aging population, an accelerated decline that analysts say could hurt economic growth and strain public finances. The last time China’s population declined was in 1960, when the country suffered the worst famine in its modern history, caused by Mao Zedong’s agricultural policies, the Great Leap Forward.
China lifted its strict one-child policy in 2016, which was imposed in the 1980s due to fears of overpopulation. Instead, in 2021, it began allowing couples to have up to three children.
But those authorizations have failed to halt the demographic decline. “The population will certainly continue to decline in the coming years,” said Zhiwei Zhang of Pinpoint Asset Management. “China will not be able to rely on the demographic dividend as a structural driver of economic growth,” he said. “Economic growth will have to depend more on productivity growth, which is driven by government policy.”
News of the population decline quickly trended on Chinese social media, with some people expressing fears for the country’s future. “Without children, the state and the nation have no future,” wrote a user of the Weibo social network, a Chinese version of Twitter. “Having children is a social responsibility,” noted a well-known patriotic “influencer” on Weibo.
But others pointed to the sharp rise in the cost of living and the difficulties of raising children in modern China. “I love my mom, but I’ll never be a mom,” said one user. That is why many local authorities have taken measures to encourage couples to have children.
For example, the southern megacity of Shenzhen offers a birth bonus and a monthly allowance until the child turns three. A couple having their first baby automatically gets 3,000 yuan ($444), and for the third child, that figure increases to 10,000 yuan ($1,480). The eastern city of Jinan began paying a monthly stipend of 600 yuan for couples who have a second child on January 1.
China’s population is also “getting used to small families due to decades of one-child policies,” said Xiujian Peng, a researcher at the University of Victoria, Australia. “The Chinese government must find effective policies to promote fertility, otherwise fertility levels will continue to decline,” he added.
Independent demographer He Yafu also points to the “decline in the number of women of childbearing age, which fell by five million a year between 2016 and 2021” due to the aging of the population. For example, India could displace China as the most populous country in the world this year, according to the UN.
Source: La Verdad
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