Matthew Loh
Mon, January 16, 2023
Travellers crowd at the gates and wait for trains at the Shanghai Hongqiao Railway Station during the peak travel rush for the upcoming Chinese New Year holiday on January 15, 2023 in Shanghai, China.
Kevin Frayer/Getty Images
China's population declined in 2022, the first time since the early 1960s.
The country's population fell by 850,000 people in 2022 to 1.4118 billion, per official statistics.
The drop, coupled with China's aging population, poses risks to the health of the nation's economy.
China's population is officially shrinking.
Mainland China's population fell by 850,000 people in 2022 to 1.4118 billion, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Tuesday. The country recorded 9.56 million new births and 10.41 million deaths in 2022. The news comes after years of falling birth rates and as Beijing grapples with an impending demographic crisis.
The decline is the first in China since Mao Zedong's failed Great Leap Forward of the early 1960s, when nationwide famine claimed an estimated 30 million lives.
The drop in 2022 also comes after China posted its slowest ever population growth in 2021, when its population rose by 480,000 people.
This new data poses drastic implications for the health of China's economy, such as potential falling demand for goods like housing and a significantly reduced working-age population.
Deaths in the country also increased, in part due to the pandemic — China has been reeling from a surge in COVID-related fatalities over the last month. On Saturday, health authorities reported nearly 60,000 COVID-related deaths between December 8 and January 12.
Health data firms elsewhere in the world estimate China's total pandemic death toll over the next few months will reach at least 1 million.
Meanwhile, India is set to overtake China as the world's most populous nation. The United Nations projects that India's population will hit 1.67 billion people by 2050, while China is expected to have a smaller population of 1.32 billion by then.
China's population declined in 2022, the first time since the early 1960s.
The country's population fell by 850,000 people in 2022 to 1.4118 billion, per official statistics.
The drop, coupled with China's aging population, poses risks to the health of the nation's economy.
China's population is officially shrinking.
Mainland China's population fell by 850,000 people in 2022 to 1.4118 billion, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Tuesday. The country recorded 9.56 million new births and 10.41 million deaths in 2022. The news comes after years of falling birth rates and as Beijing grapples with an impending demographic crisis.
The decline is the first in China since Mao Zedong's failed Great Leap Forward of the early 1960s, when nationwide famine claimed an estimated 30 million lives.
The drop in 2022 also comes after China posted its slowest ever population growth in 2021, when its population rose by 480,000 people.
This new data poses drastic implications for the health of China's economy, such as potential falling demand for goods like housing and a significantly reduced working-age population.
Deaths in the country also increased, in part due to the pandemic — China has been reeling from a surge in COVID-related fatalities over the last month. On Saturday, health authorities reported nearly 60,000 COVID-related deaths between December 8 and January 12.
Health data firms elsewhere in the world estimate China's total pandemic death toll over the next few months will reach at least 1 million.
Meanwhile, India is set to overtake China as the world's most populous nation. The United Nations projects that India's population will hit 1.67 billion people by 2050, while China is expected to have a smaller population of 1.32 billion by then.
China records 1st population fall in decades as births drop
Commuters wearing face masks walk along a street in the central business district in Beijing on Jan. 12, 2023. China has announced its first overall population decline in recent years amid an aging society and plunging birthrate
Commuters wearing face masks walk along a street in the central business district in Beijing on Jan. 12, 2023. China has announced its first overall population decline in recent years amid an aging society and plunging birthrate
. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
Mon, January 16, 2023
BEIJING (AP) — China has announced its first population decline in decades as what has been the world's most populous nation ages and its birthrate plunges.
The National Bureau of Statistics reported Tuesday that the country had 850,000 fewer people at the end of 2022 than the previous year. The tally includes only the population of mainland China, excluding Hong Kong and Macao as well as foreign residents.
That left a total of 1.41 billion people, with 9.56 million births against 10.41 million deaths, the bureau said at a briefing on Tuesday.
Men outnumbered women by 722.06 million to 689.69 million, a result of the strict one-child policy that only officially ended in 2016 and a traditional preference for male offspring to carry on the family name.
Since abandoning the policy, China has sought to encourage families to have second or even third children, with little success, reflecting attitudes in much of east Asia where birth rates have fallen precipitously. In China, the expense of raising children in cities is often cited as a cause.
China has long been the world's most populous nation, but is expected to soon be overtaken by India, if it has not already. Estimates put India's population at more than 1.4 billion and continuing to grow.
The last time China is believed to have recorded a population decline was during the Great Leap Forward at the end of the 1950s, under then-leader Mao Zedong's disastrous drive for collective farming and industrialization that produced a massive famine killing tens of millions of people.
Yi Fuxian, an expert on Chinese population trends at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, tweeted that the data reflected how China’s population began to decline nine to 10 years earlier than projections by Chinese officials and the United Nations.
That means that China's “real demographic crisis is beyond imagination and that all of China’s past … policies were based on faulty demographic data,” Yi wrote.
“China’s demographic and economic outlook is much bleaker than expected," he added, predicting that China would have to take a less combative tone internationally and improve is relations with the West.
China's statistics bureau said the working-age population between 16 and 59 years old totaled 875.56 million, accounting for 62.0% of the national population, while those aged 65 and older totaled 209.78 million, accounting for 14.9% of the total.
The statistics also showed increasing urbanization in a country that traditionally had been largely rural. Over 2022, the permanent urban population increased by 6.46 million to reach 920.71 million, or 65.22%, while the rural population fell by 7.31 million.
It wasn't immediately clear if the population figures have been affected by the COVID-19 outbreak that was first detected in the central Chinese city of Wuhan before spreading around the world. China has been accused by some specialists of underreporting deaths from the virus by blaming them on underlying conditions, but no estimates of the actual number have been published.
The United Nations estimated last year that the world’s population reached 8 billion on Nov. 15 and that India will replace China as the world’s most populous nation in 2023.
In a report released on World Population Day, the U.N. also said global population growth fell below 1% in 2020 for the first time since 1950.
Also Tuesday, the bureau released data showing China’s economic growth fell to its second-lowest level in at least four decades last year under pressure from anti-virus controls and a real estate slump.
The world’s No. 2 economy grew by 3% in 2022, less than half of the previous year’s 8.1%, the data showed.
That was the second-lowest annual rate since at least the 1970s, after the drop to 2.4% in 2020 at the start of the coronavirus pandemic, although activity is reviving after restrictions that kept millions of people at home and sparked protests were lifted.
Mon, January 16, 2023
BEIJING (AP) — China has announced its first population decline in decades as what has been the world's most populous nation ages and its birthrate plunges.
The National Bureau of Statistics reported Tuesday that the country had 850,000 fewer people at the end of 2022 than the previous year. The tally includes only the population of mainland China, excluding Hong Kong and Macao as well as foreign residents.
That left a total of 1.41 billion people, with 9.56 million births against 10.41 million deaths, the bureau said at a briefing on Tuesday.
Men outnumbered women by 722.06 million to 689.69 million, a result of the strict one-child policy that only officially ended in 2016 and a traditional preference for male offspring to carry on the family name.
Since abandoning the policy, China has sought to encourage families to have second or even third children, with little success, reflecting attitudes in much of east Asia where birth rates have fallen precipitously. In China, the expense of raising children in cities is often cited as a cause.
China has long been the world's most populous nation, but is expected to soon be overtaken by India, if it has not already. Estimates put India's population at more than 1.4 billion and continuing to grow.
The last time China is believed to have recorded a population decline was during the Great Leap Forward at the end of the 1950s, under then-leader Mao Zedong's disastrous drive for collective farming and industrialization that produced a massive famine killing tens of millions of people.
Yi Fuxian, an expert on Chinese population trends at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, tweeted that the data reflected how China’s population began to decline nine to 10 years earlier than projections by Chinese officials and the United Nations.
That means that China's “real demographic crisis is beyond imagination and that all of China’s past … policies were based on faulty demographic data,” Yi wrote.
“China’s demographic and economic outlook is much bleaker than expected," he added, predicting that China would have to take a less combative tone internationally and improve is relations with the West.
China's statistics bureau said the working-age population between 16 and 59 years old totaled 875.56 million, accounting for 62.0% of the national population, while those aged 65 and older totaled 209.78 million, accounting for 14.9% of the total.
The statistics also showed increasing urbanization in a country that traditionally had been largely rural. Over 2022, the permanent urban population increased by 6.46 million to reach 920.71 million, or 65.22%, while the rural population fell by 7.31 million.
It wasn't immediately clear if the population figures have been affected by the COVID-19 outbreak that was first detected in the central Chinese city of Wuhan before spreading around the world. China has been accused by some specialists of underreporting deaths from the virus by blaming them on underlying conditions, but no estimates of the actual number have been published.
The United Nations estimated last year that the world’s population reached 8 billion on Nov. 15 and that India will replace China as the world’s most populous nation in 2023.
In a report released on World Population Day, the U.N. also said global population growth fell below 1% in 2020 for the first time since 1950.
Also Tuesday, the bureau released data showing China’s economic growth fell to its second-lowest level in at least four decades last year under pressure from anti-virus controls and a real estate slump.
The world’s No. 2 economy grew by 3% in 2022, less than half of the previous year’s 8.1%, the data showed.
That was the second-lowest annual rate since at least the 1970s, after the drop to 2.4% in 2020 at the start of the coronavirus pandemic, although activity is reviving after restrictions that kept millions of people at home and sparked protests were lifted.
China’s population falls for first time since 1961, highlights demographic crisis
Children play on swings at a playground in Beijing
Mon, January 16, 2023
By Albee Zhang and Farah Master
BEIJING/HONG KONG (Reuters) -China's population fell last year for the first time in six decades, a historic turn that is expected to mark the start of a long period of decline in its citizen numbers with profound implications for its economy and the world.
The drop, the worst since 1961, the last year of China's Great Famine, also lends weight to predictions that India will become the world's most populous nation this year.
China's population declined by roughly 850,000 to 1.41175 billion at the end of 2022, the country's National Bureau of Statistics said.
Long-term, U.N. experts see China's population shrinking by 109 million by 2050, more than triple the decline of their previous forecast in 2019.
That's caused domestic demographers to lament that China will get old before it gets rich, slowing the economy as revenues drop and government debt increases due to soaring health and welfare costs.
"China's demographic and economic outlook is much bleaker than expected. China will have to adjust its social, economic, defense and foreign policies," said demographer Yi Fuxian.
He added that the country's shrinking labour force and downturn in manufacturing heft would further exacerbate high prices and high inflation in the United States and Europe.
The national statistics bureau said in a statement that people should not worry about the decline in population as "overall labour supply still exceeds demand".
China's birth rate last year was just 6.77 births per 1,000 people, down from a rate of 7.52 births in 2021 and marking the lowest birth rate on record.
The death rate, the highest since 1974 during the Cultural Revolution, was 7.37 deaths per 1,000 people, which compares with rate of 7.18 deaths in 2021.
ONE-CHILD POLICY IMPACT
Much of the demographic downturn is the result of China's one-child policy imposed between 1980 and 2015 as well as sky-high education costs that have put many Chinese off having more than one child or even having any at all.
The data was the top trending topic on Chinese social media after the figures were released on Tuesday. One hashtag,"#Is it really important to have offspring?" had hundreds of millions of hits.
"The fundamental reason why women do not want to have children lies not in themselves, but in the failure of society and men to take up the responsibility of raising children. For women who give birth this leads to a serious decline in their quality of life and spiritual life," posted one netizen with the username Joyful Ned.
China's stringent zero-COVID policies that were in place for three years have caused further damage to the country's demographic outlook, population experts have said.
Local governments have since 2021 rolled out measures to encourage people to have more babies, including tax deductions, longer maternity leave and housing subsidies. President Xi Jinping also said in October the government would enact further supportive policies.
Measures so far, however, have done little to arrest the long-term trend.
Online searches for baby strollers on China's Baidu search engine dropped 17% in 2022 and are down 41% since 2018, while searches for baby bottles are down more than a third since 2018. In contrast, searches for elderly care homes surged eight-fold last year.
The reverse is playing out in India, where Google Trends shows a 15% year-on-year increase in searches for baby bottles in 2022, while searches for cribs rose almost five-fold.
(Reporting by Albee Zhang in Beijing and Farah Master in Hong Kong; Additional reporting by Kevin Yao in Beijing; Editing by Edwina Gibbs)
Children play on swings at a playground in Beijing
Mon, January 16, 2023
By Albee Zhang and Farah Master
BEIJING/HONG KONG (Reuters) -China's population fell last year for the first time in six decades, a historic turn that is expected to mark the start of a long period of decline in its citizen numbers with profound implications for its economy and the world.
The drop, the worst since 1961, the last year of China's Great Famine, also lends weight to predictions that India will become the world's most populous nation this year.
China's population declined by roughly 850,000 to 1.41175 billion at the end of 2022, the country's National Bureau of Statistics said.
Long-term, U.N. experts see China's population shrinking by 109 million by 2050, more than triple the decline of their previous forecast in 2019.
That's caused domestic demographers to lament that China will get old before it gets rich, slowing the economy as revenues drop and government debt increases due to soaring health and welfare costs.
"China's demographic and economic outlook is much bleaker than expected. China will have to adjust its social, economic, defense and foreign policies," said demographer Yi Fuxian.
He added that the country's shrinking labour force and downturn in manufacturing heft would further exacerbate high prices and high inflation in the United States and Europe.
The national statistics bureau said in a statement that people should not worry about the decline in population as "overall labour supply still exceeds demand".
China's birth rate last year was just 6.77 births per 1,000 people, down from a rate of 7.52 births in 2021 and marking the lowest birth rate on record.
The death rate, the highest since 1974 during the Cultural Revolution, was 7.37 deaths per 1,000 people, which compares with rate of 7.18 deaths in 2021.
ONE-CHILD POLICY IMPACT
Much of the demographic downturn is the result of China's one-child policy imposed between 1980 and 2015 as well as sky-high education costs that have put many Chinese off having more than one child or even having any at all.
The data was the top trending topic on Chinese social media after the figures were released on Tuesday. One hashtag,"#Is it really important to have offspring?" had hundreds of millions of hits.
"The fundamental reason why women do not want to have children lies not in themselves, but in the failure of society and men to take up the responsibility of raising children. For women who give birth this leads to a serious decline in their quality of life and spiritual life," posted one netizen with the username Joyful Ned.
China's stringent zero-COVID policies that were in place for three years have caused further damage to the country's demographic outlook, population experts have said.
Local governments have since 2021 rolled out measures to encourage people to have more babies, including tax deductions, longer maternity leave and housing subsidies. President Xi Jinping also said in October the government would enact further supportive policies.
Measures so far, however, have done little to arrest the long-term trend.
Online searches for baby strollers on China's Baidu search engine dropped 17% in 2022 and are down 41% since 2018, while searches for baby bottles are down more than a third since 2018. In contrast, searches for elderly care homes surged eight-fold last year.
The reverse is playing out in India, where Google Trends shows a 15% year-on-year increase in searches for baby bottles in 2022, while searches for cribs rose almost five-fold.
(Reporting by Albee Zhang in Beijing and Farah Master in Hong Kong; Additional reporting by Kevin Yao in Beijing; Editing by Edwina Gibbs)
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