China’s birth rate decline and economic growth slump in 2019 present new challenges after trade war deal

Gross domestic product (GDP) growth was 6.1 per cent in 2019, a year in which the Chinese economy was hammered by US tariffs

Some 14.65 million babies were born in China in 2019, down from 15.23 million in 2018, and the lowest number since 1961

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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. Photo: Xinhua

Published: 9:00pm, 17 Jan 2020Updated: 3:22pm, 17 Feb 2020

China's economic growth last year slumped to its slowest pace in 29 years, while the number of births fell to a near-six decade low, highlighting two key long-term challenges facing the country just days after the signing of a partial trade deal with the United States.

Gross domestic product (GDP) growth was 6.1 per cent in 2019, a year in which the Chinese economy was hammered by US tariffs. After months of negotiations and escalating duties on each other’s goods, China and the United States agreed on Wednesday to put the brakes on an 18-month trade war that has disrupted global supply chains and shaken markets.

But the partial tariff relief offered in the phase one deal does not alleviate deeper structural issues facing the world's second largest economy, including a looming demographic crisis and the prospect of a prolonged economic cooling off period.

“The declining number of newborns may not necessarily hurt the economy much in the short term, but it casts a shadow over China's growth in two or three decades,” said Huang Wenzheng, co-director of cnpop.org, a website focused on analysing China's birth policy.

Some 14.65 million babies were born in China last year, down from 15.23 million in 2018, and the lowest number since 1961, according to data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) released on Friday. The birth rate fell to 10.48 per thousand, the lowest level since at least 1949 when the Communist Party took power.

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 working age people – between 16 and 59 years old – was 896.4 million, accounting for 64 per cent of the total population, a decrease of 890,000 on 2018.

The slowing birth rate will add to demographic concerns among policymakers in China, where the population is greying rapidly due to decades of rigid birth controls. Authorities only abandoned the controversial one-child policy in 2016 to allow couples to have two children, but it has failed to boost births. The number of babies rose briefly to 17.86 million in 2016, but has fallen every year since.