China’s population falls for first time since 1961

BEIJING/HONG KONG — China’s population fell final yr for the first time in six a long time, a historic flip that’s anticipated to mark the beginning of a protracted interval of decline in its citizen numbers with profound implications for its financial system and the world.

The drop, the worst since 1961, the final yr of China’s Nice Famine, additionally lends weight to predictions that India will grow to be the world’s most populous nation this yr.

China’s population declined by roughly 850,000 to 1.41175 billion on the finish of 2022, the nation’s Nationwide Bureau of Statistics mentioned.

Long run, United Nations specialists see China’s population shrinking by 109 million by 2050, greater than triple the decline of their earlier forecast in 2019.

That’s brought on home demographers to lament that China will get outdated earlier than it will get wealthy, slowing the financial system as revenues drop and authorities debt will increase as a result of hovering well being and welfare prices.

“China’s demographic and economic outlook is much bleaker than expected. China will have to adjust its social, economic, defense and foreign policies,” mentioned demographer Yi Fuxian.

He added that the nation’s shrinking labor drive and downturn in manufacturing heft would additional exacerbate excessive costs and excessive inflation in the USA and Europe.

The nationwide statistics bureau mentioned in an announcement that individuals mustn’t fear in regards to the decline in population as “overall labor supply still exceeds demand.”

China’s beginning charge final yr was simply 6.77 births per 1,000 folks, down from a charge of seven.52 births in 2021 and marking the bottom beginning charge on report.

The demise charge, the very best since 1974 through the Cultural Revolution, was 7.37 deaths per 1,000 folks, which compares with charge of seven.18 deaths in 2021.

ONE-CHILD POLICY IMPACT
A lot of the demographic downturn is the results of China’s one-child coverage imposed between 1980 and 2015 in addition to sky-high training prices which have put many Chinese language off having a couple of little one and even having any in any respect.

The info was the highest trending subject on Chinese language social media after the figures had been launched on Tuesday. One hashtag, “Is it really important to have offspring?” had a whole bunch of hundreds of thousands of hits.

“The fundamental reason why women do not want to have children lies not in themselves, but in the failure of society and men to take up the responsibility of raising children. For women who give birth this leads to a serious decline in their quality of life and spiritual life,” posted one netizen with the username Joyful Ned.

China’s stringent zero-COVID insurance policies that had been in place for three years have brought on additional injury to the nation’s demographic outlook, population specialists have mentioned.

Native governments have since 2021 rolled out measures to encourage folks to have extra infants, together with tax deductions, longer maternity depart and housing subsidies. President Xi Jinping additionally mentioned in October the federal government would enact additional supportive insurance policies.

Measures to this point, nonetheless, have performed little to arrest the long-term development.

On-line searches for child strollers on China’s Baidu search engine dropped by 17% in 2022 and are down by 41% since 2018, whereas searches for child bottles are down greater than a 3rd since 2018. In distinction, searches for aged care properties surged eightfold final yr.

The reverse is enjoying out in India, the place Google Traits reveals a 15% year-on-year improve in searches for child bottles in 2022, whereas searches for cribs rose virtually fivefold. — Reuters

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