As the world's most populous nation faces a looming demographic crisis, official data showed on Tuesday that China's population fell last year for the first time in more than six decades.
As the country's workforce ages, birth rates have dropped to record lows in the nation of 1.4 billion people. Analysts say that this rapid decline could stymie economic growth and put more pressure on already-strained public finances.
At the end of 2022, Beijing's National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) reported that there were approximately 1,411,750,000 people living on the mainland, a 850,000 decrease from the previous year.
According to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), there were 9.56 million births and 10.41 million deaths.
The worst famine in modern Chinese history, brought on by Mao Zedong's disastrous agricultural policy known as the Great Leap Forward, led to a population decline in China in the early 1960s.
In response to concerns about overpopulation, China ended its one-child policy in the 1980s in 2016 and began allowing couples to have three children in 2021.
However, this has not reversed the country's demographic decline, which has long been driven by its large workforce.
According to the most pessimistic projections made by that team of demographers, China may only have 587 million people in 2100, or less than half of the population it has today.
The United Nations also predicts that India will surpass China as the world's most populous nation this year.
0 Comments