BEIJING, China — China’s population went down for the first time in a long time last year as its birthrate fell, according to official figures released Tuesday, putting additional pressure on leaders to keep the economy growing despite an aging workforce and rising tensions with the United States.
Despite official figures, some experts believe China‘s population has been declining for several years — a dramatic shift in a country that once attempted to control population growth through a one-child policy.
Many wealthy countries are trying to figure out what to do about their aging workforces, which can slow down economic growth. Some experts think it will be especially hard for a developing economy like China to deal with this demographic shift.
“China had gotten older before it got rich,” Yi Fuxian, a demographer and expert on Chinese population, said.
China Had 850,000 Fewer People in 2022
According to the National Bureau of Statistics, the country had 850,000 fewer people in 2022 than the previous year. The number only includes people who live in mainland China. It does not include people who live in Hong Kong, Macao, or other countries.
Official numbers show that over 1 million fewer babies were born than the year before. This was because the economy was slowing, and widespread pandemic lockdowns existed. In 2022, the bureau reported 9.56 million births and 10.41 million deaths.
It was unclear whether the covid 19 outbreak influenced the population figures. Some experts say China is underreporting deaths from the virus by saying other things caused them. However, no estimates of how many people have died have been made public.
Yi says that China’s population has started to drop nine to ten years earlier than Chinese officials and the UN thought it would. The country has long been the world’s most populous, but it is expected to be surpassed by India soon, if not already.
Ending The One Child Policy Has Increased It Only Slightly
Since the end of the one-child policy in 2016, China has sought to increase its population. Since then, China has tried, with limited success, to encourage families to have second, mirroring attitudes in much of East Asia, where birth rates have fallen precipitously. The cost of raising children in cities is frequently cited as a cause in China.
Yi’s research shows that China’s population has decreased since 2018. This means that the population crisis is “much worse” than was thought before. According to him, China now has one of the world’s lowest fertility rates, second only to Taiwan and South Korea.
That means China’s “true demographic crisis is beyond imagination” and that “all of China’s previous economic, social, defense, and foreign policies were based on faulty demographic data,” according to Yi.
Yi says that China’s coming economic crisis will be worse than Japan’s, partly blamed on a shrinking population.
China’s Latest Decline Caused By ‘The Great Leap Forward’
Aside from demographic challenges, China is increasingly competing economically with the United States, which has restricted access to American technology for some Chinese companies, citing national security and fair competition concerns.
The last population decline in China is thought to have occurred during the Great Leap Forward.
According to China’s statistics bureau, there were 875.56 million people between the ages of 16 and 59 who were working-age, making up 62% of the country’s population. There were 209.78 million people 65 and older, making up 14.9% of the total.
According to Stuart Gietel-Basten, professor of social science at Khalifa University in Abu Dhabi, a declining population does not always imply a weaker economy.
“It’s a major psychological problem. “Perhaps the largest,” Gietel-Basten said.
Women Still OutNumber Men
According to statistics bureau data, men outnumbered women by 722.06 million to 689.69 million, owing to the one-child policy.
The figures also showed an increase in urbanization in a traditionally rural country. The permanent urban population will increase by 6.46 million to 920.71 million, or 65.22%, by 2022.
Last year, the United Nations estimated that the world’s population reached 8 billion, and that India will overtake China as the world’s most populous country in 2023. The last census in India was scheduled for 2022 but was pushed back due to the pandemic.
The United Nations said in a report released on World Population Day that global population growth will fall below 1% in 2020 for the first time since 1950.
Also on Tuesday, the statistics bureau released data showing that China’s economic growth slowed to the second-lowest level in at least four decades last year, owing to anti-virus controls and a real estate slump.
Economy Only Grew By 3%
According to the data, the world’s second-largest economy grew by 3% in 2022, less than half of the previous year’s 8.1%.
Gietel-Basten said that China has been adapting to changes in its population for years by making policies to move its economic activities up the value chain of innovation. He used the growth of the semiconductor manufacturing industry and the financial services industry as examples.
“India’s population is much younger and growing. But there are many reasons you wouldn’t bet your entire fortune on India overtaking China economically shortly,” he said.
Among India’s many challenges is a much lower level of female labor-force participation than in China, according to Gietel-Basten.
“Whatever population you have, it’s not what you have but what you do with it… to some extent,” he said.
SOURCE – (AP)
