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China population: Beijing urged to act in face of ‘brutal’ facts of slower birth rate, declining workforce
- New census data confirms China’s workforce will decline over the next decade, a trend that could weaken long-term productivity, consumer demand and innovation
- Experts warn if China does not address its low birth rate it could see a fate similar to Japan, where economic growth slowed as the population declined
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China birth rate at 60-year low as new census shows population grew slightly to 1.412 billion
China birth rate at 60-year low as new census shows population grew slightly to 1.412 billion
China’s population has grown to 1.412 billion over the past decade, the slowest pace since the 1950s, in a continuing demographic shift to a declining labour force and rapidly ageing society that is expected to weigh on the country’s economic progress in the years ahead.
While the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said the population would stay above 1.4 billion “for a certain period of time” as it unveiled the results of a once-in-a-decade census on Tuesday, experts warned that strong steps would have to be taken to tackle the country’s falling birth rate to avoid the same fate as Japan, which has seen weak economic growth under the same trend.
The population of mainland China grew 5.38 per cent in 2020 from 10 years earlier, the smallest rate of expansion since the census began in 1953, according to the survey results.
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The number of new births last year stood at 12 million, down from 14.65 million in 2019, the NBS said, marking an 18 per cent decline year on year and approaching a near six-decade low.
The fertility rate – the number of children per woman of child-bearing age – fell to 1.3, below the level of 2.1 that experts say is needed to maintain a stable population.
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