China's population continues to fall for the third year in a row due to a falling birth rate and amid concerns about the economy.
China's population fell for the third consecutive year in 2024, as a demographic crisis continues to haunt the East Asian superpower.
The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) reported on Friday that China's population fell by 1.39 million in the past 12 months to 1.408 million as deaths continue to outnumber births.
China's population has been steadily declining since the 1980s, but the year 2022 marked the first time that deaths exceeded births since 1961, when China was in the midst of the disastrous Great Leap Forward plan, which caused a famine in which approximately 20 million people died. of hunger.
Beijing's recent efforts to stem the decline in the birth rate have failed to stem what is a long-term trend, and the NBS acknowledged that the country faced several challenges.
“We must be aware that the adverse effects caused by the external environment are increasing, domestic demands are insufficient, some enterprises have production and operation difficulties, and the economy still faces difficulties and challenges,” the office said in its report.
Beijing has employed a variety of carrot-and-stick approaches to boost the birth rate, from labeling single women as “leftovers” if they remain single to making it harder to obtain a divorce or abortion, as well as offering subsidies to couples. to support the rising cost of childcare.
Marriages increased 12.4 percent year-on-year in 2023 following the end of the COVID-19 pandemic, leading to a brief rebound in births in the first half of 2024 in some parts of the country.
Last year was also the auspicious Year of the Dragon in China, which typically leads to a small baby boom across Asia, but experts say the overall trend is downward.
China formally ended its “one-child policy” in 2016, which for decades sought to control the country's growth but ended with an imbalanced population due to a cultural preference for male children.
Families can now have three children as of 2021, but the rising cost of living in urban areas, a slowing economy and a high youth unemployment rate have made raising children a less attractive prospect for many young Chinese.
China's economy grew 5 percent in 2024, meeting government predictions, but gross domestic product (GDP) growth is expected to continue slowing in the coming years.
Facing a demographic crisis, Beijing has implemented new measures to gradually raise the mandatory retirement age from 60 to 63 for men, from 55 to 58 for women in management and technical positions, and 55 for all other workers.
China is not the only East Asian country facing a demographic crisis.
Japan, South Korea and Taiwan are also experiencing population declines for similar reasons as China, including immigration restrictions. China, like much of East Asia, also does not allow single women to access fertility treatments, such as IVF.
