China’s population dip is a global concern.
China’s declining — and aging — population brings with it crippling economic and social problems.
China’s population fell by 2.08 million in 2023, a decline for the second straight year, the country’s National Bureau of Statistics said Wednesday. Add the decline of 850,000 in 2022, and it means that the population of the world’s second most populous nation has declined by nearly three million in two years.
Notably, the 2022 decline was the first since 1961, recorded in the aftermath of a widespread famine in Mao Zedong’s time.
The total number of people in China dropped by 2.75 million – or 0.2% – to 1.409 billion in 2023, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Tuesday. The drop surpassed that recorded in 2022, of about 850,000 – the first time the recorded population had declined since the mass deaths of the Mao-era famines.
In 2023, total deaths rose 6.6% to 11.1 million, with the death rate reaching the highest level since the chaos of the cultural revolution in 1974. At the same time, new births fell 5.7% to 9.02 million. The birthrate was the lowest ever recorded at 6.39 births per 1,000 people, down from a rate of 6.77 births in 2022.
China has for years been battling trends that have led to an ageing population, which were driven by past policies of population control –including the one-child policy – and a growing reluctance among young adults to have children. In 2023 it was overtaken by India as the world’s most populous nation, according to UN estimates.
Chinese officials fear the impact that this “demographic timebomb” could have on the economy, with the rising costs of aged care and financial support in danger of not being met by a shrinking population of working taxpayers. The state-run Chinese Academy of Sciences has predicted the pension system in its current form will run out of money by 2035. By then the number of people in China above 60 years old – the national retirement age – will have increased from about 280 million to 400 million.
