HONG KONG – The world’s most populous country has reached a tipping point: China’s population has begun to shrink, after years of declining birth rates that experts say are irreversible.
The government said on Tuesday that 9.56 million people were born in China last year, while 10.41 million people died. It was the first time the death toll has risen in China since the Great Leap Forward, Mao Zedong’s economic experiment that led to famine and death in the 1960s.
Chinese authorities have tried for years to delay this period, loosening the one-child rule and offering incentives to encourage families to have children. None of those plans worked. Now, in the face of a declining population, and a long-term increase in the standard of living, the country is entering an economic crisis that will have consequences not only for China but for its economy and the rest of the world.
Over the past four decades, China has emerged as a global economic powerhouse and factory. The world’s transition from abject poverty to the world’s second-largest economy led to longer life spans which led to a population decline – more people live longer while fewer children are born.
This trend has accelerated another worrisome scenario: the day when China will not have enough working-age people to fuel its growth.
“In the long run, we will see a China the world has never seen before,” said Wang Feng, a sociology professor at the University of California, Irvine who specializes in Chinese public affairs. “There won’t be any more young, energetic, numerous people. We will begin to appreciate China, in terms of population, as the population is aging and shrinking. “
Government subsidies, such as baby subsidies and tax breaks, have failed to change the fact that many young Chinese do not want children.
Luna Zhu, 28, who lives in Beijing with her husband, said: “I cannot bear the responsibility of giving birth.” Both their parents will be willing to take care of the grandchildren, and they work for a government company that offers good maternity leave. However, Mrs. Zhu is not interested in motherhood.
Births were down from 10.6 million in 2021, the sixth straight year that the number has declined, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. The total population of China has now been reached 1.41 billion. By 2035, China’s 400 million people are expected to be over 60, accounting for nearly a third of the total population.
The labor shortage that will accompany China’s aging population will further reduce tax revenues and contributions to an already strained pension system.
Whether the government can provide more access to aged care, health care and stable incomes later in life will affect long-held beliefs that the Communist Party can provide a better life for its people.
News of China’s declining population comes at a difficult time for the government in Beijing, which is grappling with a sudden reversal last month of its Covid-19 policy.
Understand the Chinese Situation
The Chinese government has abandoned its “zero Covid” policy, which has sparked protests that have been difficult for the Communist leadership.
Data on Tuesday showed a rise in the number of deaths last year, to 10.41 million deaths, compared to around 10 million in recent years, raising questions about how the latest Covid-19 pandemic has contributed to these figures.
Last week, officials unexpectedly revealed the number of Covid-19 deaths in the first month after reporting single-digit deaths for weeks. But experts question the accuracy of the new figures – 60,000 people died between Dec. 8 and January 12.
On Tuesday, Kang Yi, Commissioner of the National Bureau of Statistics, said that the number of Covid deaths in December was not included in the total number of deaths in 2022.
China also released data on Tuesday that showed the depth of its economic problems. Gross domestic product, the largest component of trade, grew by 2.9 percent in the last three months of the year after the lockdown and the latest increase in Covid infections. For the rest of the year, China’s economy grew by just 3 percent, its slowest rate in nearly four decades.
This population history was not unexpected. Chinese officials last year admitted that the country is on the brink of a population decline that could begin before 2025. But it happened sooner than census experts, statisticians and China’s ruling Communist Party expected.
China has followed the path of many developing countries as their economies grow: The fertility rate falls as income rises and education increases. When life is better, people live longer.
“It’s a situation that economists dream of,” said Philip O’Keefe, director of the Aging Asia Research Hub, an ARC Center of Excellence in Population Aging Research.
But the government shortened its time to prepare for this period by gradually relaxing birth control laws as the country developed. “They could have committed themselves it’s a little bit of time,” said Mr. O’Keefe.
Authorities have taken steps in recent years to try to slow down the birth rate. In 2016, they released the “one child” policy that had been in place for thirty years, allowing families to have two children. In 2021, they raised the limit to three. Since then, Beijing has offered a number of incentives to couples and young families to encourage them to have children, including cash grants, tax breaks and property rebates.
That wasn’t enough to halt the fall in birthrates or change traditional expectations of women’s roles at home, said Zheng Mu, an associate professor of sociology at the National University of Singapore who studies fertility in China.
“When we talk about childcare and education, women are often expected to work,” said Ms. Mu.
Xi Jinping, China’s supreme leader, recently made the country’s population crisis a top priority, promising a “national plan to promote the birth of children.” But the reality, experts say, is that China’s birth statistics reveal something that cannot be changed.
Along with Japan and South Korea, China has one of the lowest fertility rates in the world, below what demographers call the fertility rate needed for population growth. That number requires that each family, on average, have two children.
Meanwhile, India’s total population is set to surpass China’s by the end of this year, according to the latest United Nations estimates.
China’s population decline may be very difficult to reverse at this time, said O’Keefe of the University of California, Irvine.
“I don’t think there’s a single country that has gone down as much as China in terms of fertility and is going back to where it is.”
Many young people have spoken out about the rising costs of parenting – including child care – at a time when the economy is in trouble.
Rachel Zhang, a 33-year-old artist in Beijing, decided before she married her husband that she would never have children. The couple adopted a lifestyle known as “Double Income, No Kids,” short for Chinese couples who choose to be childless. Sometimes, family elders criticize them about having a child.
“I’m sure about it,” Ms. Zhang said. I haven’t had the desire to have children since a long time. The high cost of raising a child and finding a home in a good school district has fueled her determination.
Other reasons have led to the reluctance to have more children, including the burden many young people face in caring for elderly parents and grandparents.
China’s strict “zero Covid” policy – nearly three years of mass testing, isolation and lockdown, which has forced some families to be separated for long periods of time – could lead to more people choosing to have children.
For Ms. Zhu, who got married five years ago, the epidemic re-examined her decision not to have children.
Ms. Zhu said: “Especially in the last three years of the epidemic, I feel that many things are very difficult.
It’s you contributed research, and Keith Bradsher contributed reports.
