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China's population falls for a third consecutive year

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China's population falls for a third consecutive year
China’s population fell for the third consecutive year in 2024, as a demographic crisis continues to loom over the East Asian superpower.

The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) reported on Friday that the Chinese population fell by 1.39 million over the past 12 months to 1.408 billion as deaths continue to outpace births.

China’s population has been steadily declining since the 1980s, but the year 2022 marked the first time deaths outpaced births since 1961 when China was in the midst of the disastrous Great Leap Forward plan, which led to a famine in which an estimated 20 million people died of starvation.

Recent efforts by Beijing to slow down the falling birthrate have failed to slow what is a long-term trend, and the NBS acknowledged the country was facing several challenges.

“We must be aware that the adverse effects brought by the external environment are increasing, the domestic demands are insufficient, some enterprises have difficulties in production and operation, and the economy is still facing difficulties and challenges,” the bureau said in its report.

Beijing has employed a variety of carrot-and-stick approaches to increase the birthrate, from labelling single women as “leftovers” if they remain unmarried to making it more difficult to obtain a divorce or abortion, as well as offering couples subsidies to support the rising cost of childcare.

Marriages rose 12.4 percent year-on-year in 2023 following the end of the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to a brief rebound in births in the first half of 2024 in some parts of the country.

Last year was also the auspicious Year of the Dragon in China, which typically leads to a small baby boom across Asia, but experts say the overall trend is downwards.

China formally ended its “one-child policy” in 2016 that for decades sought to control the country’s growth, but it ended with a lopsided population due to a cultural preference for male children.

Families are now allowed to have three children as of 2021, but the rising cost of living in urban areas, a slowing economy, and a high rate of youth unemployment have made raising children a less appealing prospect for many young Chinese.

China’s economy grew by 5 percent in 2024, meeting government predictions, but gross domestic product (GDP) growth is expected to continue slowing down in the coming years.

Faced with a demographic crisis, Beijing has implemented new measures to gradually raise the mandatory retirement age from 60 to 63 for men, 55 to 58 for women in managerial and technical positions, and 55 for all other women workers.

China is not the only country in East Asia facing a demographic crisis. Japan, South Korea and Taiwan are also experiencing population decline for similar reasons as China, including restrictions on immigration.

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