China reported its first population decline in more than half a century on Tuesday as a dangerous drop in the birth rate is fueling a population crisis in the world’s most populous country.
China’s National Bureau of Statistics (GNE) reported that the country will lose 850,000 people in 2022, excluding the special administrative regions of Macau and Hong Kong and foreigners.
This is how China ended last year 1,411.75 million people9.56 million births and 10.41 million deaths were recorded, describing the same source.
According to GNE, Chinese society will have a male surplus of 33 million by the end of 2022.
This figure was caused by the one-child policy that was in place in the country between 1980 and 2016. According to official Chinese data, hospitals in the country have been operating since 1971 336 million abortions and 196 million sterilizations. As a result of the feudal tradition of preference for male children, most abortions occurred when the fetus was female.
Since abandoning its one-child policy, China has tried to encourage families to have a second or third child, but with little success.
High cost of living and changes in children’s health and education and cultural attitudes towards small families are among the reasons for the decline in births.
Experts believe that India will soon overtake China as the most populous country in the world.
China last experienced population decline during the Great Leap Forward in the late 1950s, a campaign by People’s Republic founder Mao Zedong to unify the means of production to “accelerate the transition to communism.” This campaign created a massive famine that resulted in the deaths of millions of people.
China’s working-age population aged 16 to 59 is 875.56 million, accounting for 62% of the national population. The population aged 65 years and above is 209.78 million, which is 14.9% of the total.
The most populous country on the planet faces a population crisis, an aging workforce, a sluggish economy and the first population decline in decades.
The figures also reveal increasing urbanization in a country that, until ten years ago, was largely rural. Throughout 2022, the permanent urban population increased by 6.46 million to 920.71 million or 65.22% of the total, while the rural population decreased by 7.31 million.
There was no comment on the possible impact on the population of the end of the ‘Zero Covid’ policy, which resulted in an unprecedented wave of cases of the new coronavirus in the country last month, triggering a public health crisis.
China has been accused by some experts of not releasing the total number of deaths linked to Covid-19.
The United Nations estimated that the world’s population reached eight billion on November 15 last year, and that India will overtake China as the world’s most populous country by 2023.