China’s population declines, heralding a demographic crisis

HONG KONG – The world’s most populous country has reached a critical juncture: China’s population has begun to decline, after a years-long decline in the birth rate that experts say will be irreversible. .

The government said on Tuesday that 9.56 million people were born in China last year, while 10.41 million died. This is the first time that the number of deaths has exceeded the number of births in China since the Great Leap Forward, Mao Zedong’s failed economic experiment led to widespread famine and death in the 1960s.

Chinese officials have for years tried to slow down this moment, loosening the one-child policy and introducing measures to encourage families to have children. None of those policies work. Now, faced with a declining population, coupled with a prolonged increase in life expectancy, the country is being thrust into a demographic crisis that will have consequences not only for China and the economy of this country but also to the world.

Over the past four decades, China has emerged as an economic powerhouse and the world’s factory. The country’s transition from widespread poverty to the world’s second-largest economy has resulted in an increase in life expectancy that contributes to the current population decline – many are aging while fewer are young. I was born more.

That trend has accelerated another worrisome event: the day when China will not have enough working-age people to fuel the high growth rates that have made the country the engine of the global economy.

“In the long run, we will see a China the world has never seen,” said Wang Feng, a sociology professor at the University of California at Irvine who studies China’s demographics. know. “It will no longer be a young, vibrant and growing population. We’re going to start to appreciate China, in terms of population, as an aging country and its population is shrinking.”

The number of births decreased from 10.6 million VND in 2021, the sixth year in a row that number has fallen, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. By 2035, 400 million people in China are expected to be over 60 years old, almost a third of the country’s population. The labor shortage that accompanies China’s rapidly aging population will also reduce tax revenue and contribute to an already under pressure pension system.

Whether the government can provide broad access to aged care, health care and a steady source of income later in life will affect the long-held assumption that the Communist Party can can bring better life to its people.

News of China’s population decline comes at a challenging time for the government in Beijing, which is dealing with the pandemic. fallout from last month’s sudden reversal of zero tolerance policy towards covid.

Tuesday’s data showed a slight increase in the fatality rate last year, to 10.41 million deaths compared with about 10 million in recent years, raising questions about whether the recent Covid outbreak could be the case. could have contributed to the numbers.

Last week, officials unexpectedly revised the Covid death toll for the first month after reporting single-digit daily deaths for weeks. But experts have questioned its accuracyhe is the new number — 60,000 people died between December 8 and January 12.

On Tuesday, Kang Yi, commissioner of the National Bureau of Statistics, said Covid deaths for December had not yet been included in the overall death toll for 2022.

China also on Tuesday release data that shows the depth of its economic challenges. The country’s gross domestic product, the broadest measure of its commercial vitality, grew just 2.9% in the last three months of the year following widespread lockdowns and a recent surge in Covid infections. For the full year, China’s economy grew just 3%, the slowest pace in nearly four decades.

This historic demographic timing was not unexpected. Chinese officials last year acknowledged that the country was on the brink of a population decline that would likely begin before 2025. But it came earlier than predicted by demographers, statisticians and the ruling Communist Party. Chinese rights.

China has followed a trajectory familiar to many developing countries as their economies have grown richer – birth rates fall as incomes rise and education levels rise. As the quality of life improves, people live longer.

“It’s a situation economists dream of,” said Philip O’Keefe, director of the Asian Center for Aging Research, ARC Center of Excellence for Population Aging Research.

But the government has shortened its preparation time for this moment by easing birth control policies too slowly. “They could have given me Mr. O’Keefe said.

Officials have taken a number of steps in recent years to try to slow the decline in births. In 2016, they relax one-child policy has been around for 35 years, allowing families to have two children. In 2021, they raised the limit to three. Since then, Beijing has offered many incentives for couples and small families to encourage them to have children, including cash assistance, tax cuts and even property concessions.

According to a recent United Nations estimate, China’s situation stands in stark contrast to that of India, whose total population is set to surpass China’s by the end of the year. But India’s birth rate is also falling rapidly.

Xi Jinping, China’s top leader, recently prioritized the country’s demographic challenges, pledging “a national policy system to increase the birth rate”. But in reality, experts say, China’s sharp drop in births shows an irreversible trend.

“The overall decline in the population and the decline in the working age population – both are irreversible,” Mr. O’Keefe said. “I don’t think there’s a country where fertility is as low as China and then goes back to replacement fertility.”

Along with Japan and South Korea, China has one of the lowest birth rates in the world, below what demographers call the replacement birth rate needed for population growth. That number requires, on average, each couple to have two children.

So far, government measures have failed to change the basic fact that many young Chinese simply don’t want to have children. They often cite the rising cost of raising them, especially with the economy in a precarious state.

Rachel Zhang, a 33-year-old photographer in Beijing, decided before getting married that they would not have children. Sometimes, family elders nag them about having children.

“I am sure of this,” Ms. Zhang said. “I’ve never had the desire to have children all this time.” The rising cost of raising children and finding an apartment in a good school district made her determination more difficult.

Other factors contribute to their reluctance to have more children, including the burden many young people face in caring for elderly parents and grandparents.

China’s strict “Covid-free” policy — nearly three years of mass testing, isolation and blockade, which resulted in some families being separated for extended periods of time — may have made many people even worse off. decided not to have children.

Luna Zhu, 28, and her husband have parents willing to take care of their grandchildren. And she works for a state-owned enterprise that provides good maternity leave. But Ms. Zhu, who got married five years ago, doesn’t care.

“Especially in the last three years of the pandemic, I find many things difficult,” Ms. Zhu said.

Li You research contributions and Keith Bradsher contributed to the report.