China’s Population Falls For First Time In 60 Years—Here’s Why

Topline

China’s population shrank in 2022 for the first time in decades, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Tuesday, a shift signaling a looming demographic crisis that could have far-reaching consequences for Beijing despite government efforts to reverse the decline.

Key Facts

Key Background

The population data signal an important and historic moment for China and the start of what is expected to be a long period of demographic decline. The contraction is not unexpected and the birthrate has been falling for years. It has continued to fall despite a slew of government policies to encourage people to have kids, implemented by officials who are increasingly concerned about the economic and social challenges the country faces with an aging population and the shrinking size of its labor pool, key to the country’s ascendance as a major world power. Such policies include expanding access to fertility treatments, cutting access to abortion and scrapping its one child policy, which forbade couples from having more than one child under most circumstances. Beijing later upped the number of permitted children again, from two to three children per married couple, in an effort to boost births. Decades of the one child policy, which imposed harsh penalties for noncompliance, rising costs of living and changing attitudes have all contributed to the overall decline and these government policies to increase births have been largely unsuccessful. Strict zero Covid restrictions have accelerated the decline during the pandemic. The number of women of childbearing age is also falling, dropping by 4m in 2022, according to bureau director Kang Yi, the Financial Times reported.

What To Watch For

India, with a population of more than 1.4 billion, is expected to overtake China as the world’s most populous country this year, according to UN estimates. Both are currently home to around four times the number of people than the U.S., presently the world’s third most populous country. China’s population is expected to drop sharply throughout the century, according to UN models, and will be roughly half its current size by 2100. Despite this, models project it will remain the world’s most populous country after India.

Surprising Fact

The implications of three-and-a-half decades of the one child policy reach far beyond a drop in births. The policy also helped bring about a significant gender imbalance that has skewed the population male, documented by Mara Hvistendahl in Unnatural Selection. Strict limits to have just a single child collided with a widespread cultural preference for sons, the possibility of prenatal testing for sex and, then, sex-selective abortion, to make this possible. In 2022, the bureau said there were around 105 men for every 100 women.

Further Reading

World’s Population Reaches 8 Billion—Here’s What You Need To Know (Forbes)

China’s Zero-Covid Policy Succeeded—Until It Didn’t. Here’s What Went Wrong And What Experts Think Could Happen Next. (Forbes)

China’s Great Famine: the true story (Guardian)

Unnatural Selection (Book by Mara Hvistendahl)