China reported a record low birth rate in 2023 as its population shrank for the second year in a row. The trend marked the deepening of a demographic challenge set to have significant implications on the world's second largest economy.
The country recorded 6.39 births per 1,000 people, down from 6.77 a year earlier, China's National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) announced Wednesday. The birth rate is the lowest since the founding of Communist China in 1949.
Some 9.02 million babies were born, compared with 9.56 million babies in 2022. The overall population fell in 2023 to 1.409 billion, down 2.08 million people from the previous year, the bureau said.
"To be sure, last year's sharp decline should be partly due to the lockdowns and most likely new births will rebound in 2024, although the structural down-trend remains unchanged," said Larry Hu, chief China economist for Macquarie Group financial advisory.
The country's demographic shift comes at a time when its growth is sputtering. China's economy grew by 5.2% last year, according to the NBS, one of the country's worst economic performances in over three decades.
China has been beset by a series of economic problems, including investor exodus and deflation. The shrinking population will now force Beijing to make some structural changes in its economy and reshape sectors including health care and housing.
The latest figures follow China's first population decline in decades in 2022, which analysts said was the country's first drop since the 1961 famine triggered by former leader Mao Zedong's Great Leap Forward. Last year, China was surpassed by India as the world's most populous country.
A push from the government to encourage more married couples to have children following decades of restrictive birth policies has done little to stem the falling birth rate.
"There are fewer people getting married and fewer couples want to have children," said Yanzhong Huang, a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) in New York.
The Covid-19 pandemic also likely affected the existing trend "because of (its) impact on the economy – the economic slowdown, the high unemployment rate among young people – all of that has discouraged people to get married and have kids," he said.
The falling birth rate coincides with a shrinking workforce and a rapidly aging population: twin challenges for China's government as it grapples with funding health care and pensions for elderly citizens, while aiming to maintain growth in an economy manned by fewer people of working age.
China's working population, classified as those between the ages of 16 and 59, declined by 10.75 million last year, adding to an ongoing contraction. The population of those over 60, meanwhile, continued to expand. More than one-fifth of the population, or nearly 297 million people, are now in that age bracket.
There have already been signs of economic strain. Last year, demonstrations broke out in at least four cities as thousands of elderly people protested against cuts to monthly medical benefits made as local governments grappled with deficits.
China's top administrative body, the State Council, last week released guidelines to strengthen the so-called "silver economy," as part of top-down efforts to tackle the challenges of caring for a growing number of elderly.
The guidelines call on companies across sectors including housing, health care and finance to tailor services and products for the elderly. Land development and local government financing should support facilities for aging residents, it added.
The "silver economy" offers "huge potential" the guidelines said.
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