China population: plunging regional births drive home ‘severity’ of demographic crisis
- Local government data for the first six months of the year has offered new insight into China‘s declining number of births
- Experts say the country’s low fertility rate and ageing society is likely to affect how globally competitive it is in the future
The number of newborn babies in China fell sharply in the first half of the year, according to select local government data, amid growing warnings the world’s most populous nation is hurtling towards a demographic crisis.
In the central province of Henan, the country’s third most populous administrative region, the number of newborns fell 17.9 per cent from a year earlier to 411,000 in the first half of the year, provincial data on newborn disease screening showed.
The county-level city of Jiaozhou in Shandong, home to the second largest provincial population in China, issued 3,238 birth certificates between January and June, down 11.6 per cent from a year ago, according to government data.
Negative population growth is inevitable, it’s coming soon
Some 3,606 babies were born during the first half of 2021 in the county-level city of Changshu in Jiangsu – China’s fourth most populous province and second largest provincial economy – an 11.9 per cent drop from a year earlier, local birth registration figures showed.