China has recorded a second consecutive population decline to 2.08 million people after recording its lowest birth rate on record, according to data released on Wednesday by the communist regime's National Statistics Office. The Asian giant ended 2023 with 1,409 million inhabitants, 0.14% less than in 2022, the year in which the population had already fallen by 850,000 people and marked the first decline since 1961, when the US industrialization policy failed Big leap forward caused great famine. The Asian giant, the from 2021 to have a third child faces the challenge of reversing the negative trend in the birth rate, which has been declining for seven years in a row despite the authorities' efforts to increase it.
The proportion of couples with one or two children has also fallen; At the same time, the average number of children per woman fell from 1.3 in 2017 to a historic low of 0.9 last year. The challenge of the demographic crisis is more urgent in China than in any other country, for this reason alone: the communist country did it the largest population of older people in the world.
To alleviate this national emergency, the Communist Party has in recent years sought to empower women with various compensations, such as access to cheaper housing, tax benefits and cash. He took a stance in the same direction patriotism Ask the female population to do this “good wives and mothers.”
The reasons that explain the low number of births last year must be looked for in the USA PandemicThe Decline in the number of women of childbearing age and that Delay in marriage and reproduction among young Chinese, experts say. Local surveys suggest that couples are reluctant to have children due to the high cost of living in big cities and little support in the workplace. Gender discrimination and traditional stereotypes about women as the exclusive caregivers of their children remain widespread factors across the country, experts add. But there is another argument related to the old “one child policy”, which was introduced between 1980 and 2015.
This scenario worries the communist authorities because, as China Economists Forum Research Institute vice president Lin Caiyi says, population decline brings with it a decline in the workforce “Will inevitably lead to slower economic growth.” Caiyi, quoted by Hong Kong newspaper South China Morning Post, pointed out that pressure on social security spending is “increasing every year as the population ages.” One number is enough to illustrate the seriousness of the situation. Forecasts suggest that by 2035 there will be more than 400 million people over 60 in the Asian country, accounting for more than 30% of China's population. A recent study by the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences estimates that the country could lose 587 million inhabitants by 2100.
The demographic crisis in the Asian country is already putting pressure on health and pension systems, as is the case in many Western countries. The state-backed Chinese Academy of Sciences has predicted that the current pension system will run out of money by 2035. It is worth remembering that, according to UN estimates, India will overtake the world's most populous country in 2023.