Population decline in China first time since 1961 Emphasizes the demographic issue.

BEIJING/HONG KONG: For the first time in six decades, China’s population decreased last year. This historic development is likely to signal the beginning of a protracted period of population reduction, which will have a significant impact on the country’s economy and the rest of the world.

The decline, which is the greatest since 1961, the final year of China’s Great Famine, supports forecasts that India would surpass China as the world’s most populated country this year. By the end of 2022, China’s population had decreased by almost 850,000, to 1.41175 billion, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.

In the long run, according to UN analysts, China’s population would fall by 109 million people by 2050, which is more than quadruple the decline they had predicted for 2019. Domestic demographers bemoan the fact that China will age before it becomes wealthy as a result, slowing the economy as revenues decline and government debt rises as a result of skyrocketing health and welfare spending.

“The demographic and economic picture for China is far worse than anticipated. China’s social, economic, defence, and diplomatic policies will need to be adjusted “said Yi Fuxian, a demographer. The decline of manufacturing and country’s declining labour force, he continued, would make already high prices and high inflation in the United States and Europe much worse.

According to Kang Yi, director of the national statistics bureau, “total labour supply still surpasses demand,” therefore people need not worry about the population reduction. The lowest birth rate ever recorded was 6.77 births per 1,000 people in China in 2017, down from 7.52 births per 1,000 people in 2021.

According to Kang, there were 4 million fewer Chinese women who were of reproductive age, which the government defines as 25 to 35. The death rate was 7.37 per 1,000 people, which was the highest since the Cultural Revolution in 1974 and lower than the figure of 7.18 in 2021.