China: The country’s demographic decrease has resulted in record-low birth rates and a wave of Covid-19 deaths.
China’s population growth has slowed for the second year in a row in 2023, highlighting the country’s growing demographic crisis, which is expected to pressure its economy, the world’s second-largest. According to China’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), the country’s population declined by around 2.08 million people in 2023 compared to the preceding year. China is currently the world’s second most populous country, with 1.409 billion inhabitants. Last year, India surpassed China as the world’s most populous nation.
The population reduction is ascribed to record-low birth rates and a wave of Covid-19 deaths. The population fell by 8.5 lakh in 2022, marking the first known population decline since the Great Famine of 1961, which occurred during the reign of China’s previous leader, Mao Tse-tung. The birth rate fell to 6.39 births per 1,000 people, the lowest since the Chinese Communist regime’s founding, from 6.77 births per 1,000 people a year earlier. The nation’s economy is trending upward, according to the NBS. It increased by a little bit, to 5.2%, exceeding the government’s projected aim. The nation’s “worst economic performance” in three decades is still the growth rate.
The number of persons in the country between the ages of 16 and 59 who make up the workforce has decreased by 10.75 million from 2022. The number of people over 60 increased by 16.93 million in 2022. The Chinese government abandoned its highly contentious “one-child policy” in 2015 as a result of the nation’s aging population and declining labor force.
Ratnavali