HONG KONG — China’s population shrank for the second consecutive year last year, officials said Wednesday. This was spurred by record low births and a wave of deaths from the coronavirus, which has deepened demographic concerns in the world’s second-largest economy.
According to the National Bureau of Statistics, the total population of mainland China was 1.49 billion at the end of last year, down more than 2 million from 2022. In contrast, the population will decrease by 850,000 from 2021 to 2022, marking the first decline in China’s population in 60 years.
Approximately 9 million babies were born last year, and the birth rate was 6.39 per 1,000 people, down more than 500,000 from the previous year and the lowest since the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949.
The number of births in China has fallen below 10 million for the second year in a row, with young people citing a lack of work-life balance, high cost of living and adherence to traditional gender roles as reasons for their reluctance to start a family. There is.
Officials said the death toll was more than 11 million, the highest since 1974, when China was in the midst of the Cultural Revolution. A U.S. study last year found that around 200 cases of COVID-19 infections in China in early 2023 after Chinese authorities abruptly lifted three years of “zero coronavirus” restrictions, allowing the coronavirus to spread to a population that had previously had little exposure to the virus. It turned out that there were 10,000 excess deaths.
Su Yue, chief economist at the Economist Intelligence Unit in Shanghai, told NBC News that the population decline was “as expected” given the expected impact of the coronavirus. A “recovery” of newborns is expected in 2024, she added.
“About a third of the children born in 2023 were conceived in 2022, when policies during the pandemic prevented many people from being reunited with their families,” she said. “All of this actually happened in her 2022, but its effects were reflected in her 2023.”
China’s shrinking and aging population, which saw India overtake it as the world’s most populous country last year, has raised questions about whether China can overtake the United States as the world’s largest economy.
Officials said Wednesday that the economy grew 5.2% last year, in line with the government’s target for this year but below pre-pandemic growth rates.
“The situation of the national economy is picking up and improving,” Kang Yi, director of the National Bureau of Statistics, said at a press conference in Beijing, adding that economic development will continue to face challenges amid increasing economic complexity and uncertainty. . global environment.
Increasing birth rates is a top priority for governments, which in recent years have relaxed strict family planning policies that limited most couples to one child from the late 1970s to 2015 to prevent rapid population growth. did. Currently, couples are allowed to have up to three children.
President Xi Jinping said last year that China needs to “actively cultivate a new culture of marriage and childbirth” and that women will play an important role in establishing “new trends in the family.”
Local governments have responded by introducing tax breaks, childcare subsidies and other incentives to have children, and in some cases even making it easier for women to have children out of wedlock, a long-standing cultural taboo. According to state media, a statue of a family of three in central Wuhan was altered late last year to include two more children.
Reaction from the public was less enthusiastic. According to the Bureau of Statistics, the number of newborns peaked in 2016 at 17.86 million and has been declining every year since then. Marriage rates are also at historic lows.
Young Chinese people cite life stress as one of the main reasons why they are hesitant to have children, with many growing up as only children and now shouldering sole responsibility for their elderly parents. ing.
“Why do we have to have babies?” read a comment this month on Weibo, China’s popular social media platform. “Despite being under so much stress, we still have to care for the elderly and infants. But if there were no babies, the pressure would be halved.”
They also have financial concerns, as millions of graduates leave university each year and struggle to find jobs that match their skills.
Chinese authorities on Wednesday resumed publishing unemployment rates for 16- to 24-year-olds, announcing that the unemployment rate in December was 14.9% (not including students). Last summer, as the youth unemployment rate hit a record high of over 20%, authorities stopped sharing data, saying they needed to reevaluate their calculation methods.
“In the Chinese tradition, you start your career before you start a family,” says economist Su. “Youth unemployment has a real impact on families. It has slowed down the process of people having children.”
The decline in birth rates has deepened experts’ concerns about China’s aging population and resulting labor shortages, and led to calls for raising the retirement age to expand the workforce.
According to official data, the proportion of China’s population aged 65 and over in 2023 will be 15.4%, meeting the United Nations definition of an “aging society.” (In the US, this number was approximately 17.3% in 2022.)
China’s State Council on Monday announced plans to strengthen the country’s “silver economy,” under which both state-owned and private enterprises will offer products and services tailored to the needs of the elderly to help them “enjoy a happy retirement.” encouraged to develop.
According to state media, the “silver economy” accounts for about 7 trillion yuan ($980 billion), or 6%, of China’s gross domestic product (GDP), and is expected to grow to 30 trillion yuan ($4.2 trillion) by 2035. , has the potential to grow to about 10%.
Some social media commenters welcomed China’s downsizing.
“Without so many people in the country, competition will become less and less intense,” a Weibo user wrote on Wednesday after the data was released. “That’s good for us ordinary people.”