Deaths outnumbered births last year for the first time in six decades. Experts see major implications for China, its economy and the world.
HONG KONG — The world’s most populous nation has reached a turning point: China’s population has begun to drop following years of a gradual, irreversible decline in its birthrate.
The Chinese government said on Tuesday that there were 9.56 million births and 10.41 million deaths in 2017. It was the first time since Mao Zedong’s failed economic experiment that led to massive starvation and death in the 1960s that deaths outweighed births in China.
Officials in China have spent years attempting to delay the advent of this moment by relaxing the one-child policy and introducing financial incentives to encourage couples to have children. None of the policies were successful. Now, as a result of a population drop and a long-term increase in life expectancy, China is facing a demographic crisis that will affect not only China and its economy but the entire world.
China has evolved as an economic superpower and the world’s manufacturing floor over the past four decades. The country’s transformation from widespread poverty to the world’s second largest economy resulted in an increase in life expectancy, which contributed to the present population drop – more people were becoming older while fewer infants were born.
This tendency has accelerated another cause for concern: the day when China will no longer have enough people of working age to power the rapid economic expansion that has made it a worldwide economic engine.
Professor of sociology at the University of California, Irvine, specialising in China’s demographics, Wang Feng stated, “In the long run, we will witness a China the world has never witnessed.” “The population will no longer be youthful, vibrant, and increasing. In terms of its population, we will begin to view China as having an ageing and diminishing population.
According to the National Bureau of Statistics, the number of births decreased for the sixth consecutive year, down from 10.6 million in 2021. By 2035, roughly a third of China’s population, or 400 million individuals, are projected to be over the age of 60. The labour shortages that will accompany China’s rapidly ageing population will lower tax income and payments to a pension system that is already under immense strain.
