China on Tuesday announced its first population decline in more than half a century, as falling birth rates threatened to unleash a demographic crisis in the world’s most populous country.
China’s National Bureau of Statistics (GNE) reported that the country lost 850,000 people in 2022, a count that excludes the Macao and Hong Kong special administrative regions and foreign residents.
China thus ended last year with 1,411.75 million inhabitants, having registered 9.56 million births and 10.41 million deaths, the same source detailed.
Chinese society still had a male surplus of 33 million at the end of 2022, according to the GNE.
This figure was caused by the one-child policy, which was in force in the country between 1980 and 2016. According to official Chinese data, since 1971, the country’s hospitals have performed 336 million abortions and 196 million sterilizations. As a result of the feudal tradition that gives preference to male children, most abortions occurred when the fetus was female.
Since abandoning its one-child policy, China has tried to encourage families to have a second or even a third child, but with little success.
The higher cost of living and with the health and education of children and a change in cultural attitudes towards smaller families are among the reasons cited for the decline in births.
Experts believe that China will soon be overtaken by India as the most populous nation on the planet.
The last time China experienced a population decline was during the Great Leap Forward, a campaign launched in the late 1950s by the founder of the People’s Republic, Mao Zedong, to “accelerate the transition to communism” through collectivization. of the means of production. This campaign produced a full-scale famine, which resulted in the death of tens of millions of people.
The GNE also reported that China’s working-age population – between 16 and 59 years – amounted to 875.56 million, representing 62% of the national population. The population aged 65 and over amounts to 209.78 million, which represents 14.9% of the total.
The most populous country on the planet could thus face a demographic crisis, with an aging workforce, a slowing economy and the first demographic decline in decades.
The statistics also reveal increasing urbanization in a country that, until less than ten years ago, was largely rural. Throughout 2022, the permanent urban population increased by 6.46 million to 920.71 million, or 65.22% of the total, while the rural population decreased by 7.31 million.
No comment was made on the possible effect on demographics of the end of the ‘covid zero’ policy, which resulted in an unprecedented wave of cases of the new coronavirus in the country last month, sparking a public health crisis.
Some experts accuse China of not disclosing the total number of Covid-related deaths.
The United Nations estimated last year that the world’s population reached eight billion people on November 15 and that India will replace China as the world’s most populous nation by 2023.
Source: TSF
