China population: tumbling regional births underline crisis, could force Beijing to ‘double down’ on policies
- China’s population grew to 1.412 billion in 2020 despite births falling to 12 million last year, prompting authorities to roll-out policy changes and invectives
- But Chizhou city in Anhui province says its number of births in the first 10 months of the year plummeted by 21 per cent compared to a year earlier
Consistent falls in the number of births in some regions in China of more than 10 per cent this year have prompted further concerns of a deepening population crisis, underlining suggestions that support measures to address the issue have been ineffective, with one city seeing number of newborns plummet by 21 per cent.
Authorities at a local and national level responded to the concerning results of the 2020 census released earlier this year with a series of policy changes and invectives, but experts have already expressed concerns about their efficiency and the long-term ramifications of a population decline.
In Henan, the third most populated province in the country according to the 2020 census, births in the first nine months of the year tumbled by 18.8 per cent from the same period last year. Overall, the number of births in the province has declined for five consecutive years since 2016.
In Guiyang, the capital city of Guizhou province, the number of babies born between January to October dropped by 16.8 per cent from a year earlier.