China’s population faces ‘endless period of decline’, with demographic shift far from finished

Name: Chinese reluctant to have children as China reports first population fall in 61 years
Uploaded: 2023-01-17T11:31:59.000Z
Duration: 2 min 14 s
Description: Chinese reluctant to have children as China reports first population fall in 61 years

As deaths outnumber births for the first time since 1961, population experts say reversing the trend is hopeless, but all-out efforts must still be taken

Desperate times could force China to adopt a ‘tone-setting’ shift by completely scrapping its family-planning policies, which experts say would help mitigate the shrinkage

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02:14

Chinese reluctant to have children as China reports first population fall in 61 years

Luna Sunin Beijing

Published: 7:31pm, 17 Jan 2023Updated: 9:44am, 20 Jan 2023

China’s population decline is irreversible, and believing otherwise is futile, demographers warned on Tuesday as the world’s long-time most populous nation announced that it shrank last year for the first time in six decades.

Nonetheless, they say the urgency of the situation shows that more must be done to stem the tide, including ramped-up efforts to boost the birth rate.

“It’s unquestionable that China will not see population growth from now on, as an endless period of population decline began in 2022,” independent demographer He Yafu said. “There’s no hope that the decline can be reversed.”

Setting off renewed debate and concerns over the potential implications on economic growth, the National Bureau of Statistics confirmed on Tuesday that China’s overall population dropped by 850,000 people to 1.4118 billion in 2022, down from 1.4126 billion a year earlier.

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China reports first population decline in 6 decades, with birth rate at record low in 2022

The last time that deaths outnumbered births in China was 1961, when the nation was still reeling from Mao Zedong’s Great Leap Forward. Tens of millions of people died of starvation during the Great Famine that swept through the country from 1958-61.

Last year, the national birth rate fell to a record low of 6.77 for every 1,000 people as Chinese mothers had only 9.56 million babies – the nation’s lowest total in modern history and the first time the figure fell below 10 million.

China allowed couples to have three children in 2021 after dropping the notorious one-child policy that was in place from the 1980s until 2016, when the two-child policy followed.

Having additional children is also no longer punishable by law, but they would not qualify for any legally mandated childcare and benefits.