China’s birth rate falls to near 60-year low, with 2019 producing fewest babies since 1961
- Chinese mothers gave birth to 14.65 million babies last year, the lowest level since 1961, the government announced on Friday
- China’s overall population continued to grow, rising to 1.4 billion at the end of the year from 1.39 billion a year earlier
The number of newborn babies in China sunk to a near six-decade low last year, reinforcing worries about the cost of a lower birth rate on the economy and the country’s ability to support its rapidly ageing population in the year ahead.
China’s overall population continued to grow, rising to 1.4 billion at the end of the year from 1.39 billion a year earlier.
The weak birth data was within the expectations of many veteran demographers who for years called for the Chinese government to abandon its one-child birth policy – which ended in 2016 – because of the damage it would do to future economic growth and the nation’s ability to support its ageing population. Fewer births mean fewer wage earners and fewer consumers in the future.
In 2019, China’s economy grew 6.1 per cent from a year earlier, the lowest since 1990, according to the NBS.
The working aged population between 16 and 59 years old was 896.4 million at the end of last year, accounting for 64 per cent of the total population. The number of Chinese aged over 60 was 253.8 million, or some 18 per cent of the national total.
Demographers have claimed that China’s birth numbers were overstated over the decade to 2016 to delay loosening of the one-child policy. A lack of public information from the local levels made it more difficult to double-check official figures.
“Demographic data are sacred. But China’s birth numbers are very sloppy and highly influenced by politics,” said Yi Fuxian, a scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a long-time critic of China’s birth policy.
Chongqing, a provincial-level municipality in western China, is one of very few places that releases monthly birth data collected from hospitals. From January to November last year, Chongqing had 255,692 new babies, down 0.02 per cent from a year earlier. But in June alone, it reported 66,862 newborn children, close to the total number of births from the previous five months combined, leading experts to suspect that local officials were manipulating data to match an official target.
Last year, Beijing asked local governments to get a clear picture of births in their jurisdictions, but few have published their reports. In an August report from the Tongling municipal government in eastern Anhui province, the number of new babies dropped 8 per cent in the first half of the year from a year earlier, with the number of the second born lower than first born.
Ren Zeping, chief economist from Evergrande, wrote in a recent article that the government should fully liberalise birth policy before it is too late. According to his calculation, between 2013 and 2028, the number of child bearing women aged between 20 and 35 will fall by 30 per cent.
“The one-child policy was originally planned to be implemented for 30 years since 1980, but some people estimated that the two-child policy would bring the birth number to the peak of 49.95 million, repeatedly delaying the timing of policy adjustments,” Ren said.
