China’s Population Drops for 2nd Year, With Record Low Birth Rate

A child peers through the visor of a windbreaker on an electric scooter while returning from school in Beijing on November 22, 2023. Wang Zhao / AFP via Getty Images

China’s official population fell for a second consecutive year in 2023, as a record low birth rate and a wave of COVID-19 deaths, when strict lockdowns ended, accelerated a downturn that will have profound long-term effects on the economy’s growth potential.

Births were down to 9.02 million last year, from 9.56 million births in 2022 and the lowest level since the ruling Communist Party took control of the country in 1949, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Jan. 17.  The birth rate was a record low 6.39 births per 1,000 people, down from a rate of 6.77 births in 2022. With 11.1 million deaths, the total number of people in China dropped to 1.409 billion in 2023, according to official data.

Births in the country have been plummeting for decades as a result of the one-child policy implemented from 1980 to 2015 and its rapid urbanization during that period. As with earlier economic booms in Japan and South Korea, large populations moved from China’s rural farms into cities, where having children is more expensive. Japan’s birth rate was 6.3 per 1,000 people in 2022, while South Korea’s rate was 4.9.

“As we have observed again and again from other low fertility countries, fertility decline is often very difficult to reverse,” University of Michigan demographer Zhou Yun said.

Further denting appetite for baby-making in China in 2023, youth unemployment hit record highs, wages for many white-collar workers fell, and a crisis in the property sector, where more than two-thirds of household wealth is stored, intensified.

The fresh data adds to concerns that the world’s No.2 economy’s growth prospects are diminishing due to fewer workers and consumers, while the rising costs of elderly care and retirement benefits put more strain on indebted local governments.

India surpassed China as the world’s most populous nation last year, according to estimates by the United Nations, fuelling more debate over the merits of relocating some China-based supply chains to other markets, especially as geopolitical tensions rise between Beijing and Washington.

Shrinking Population

Total deaths last year rose 6.6 percent to 11.1 million, with the death rate reaching the highest level since 1974 during the Cultural Revolution.

China experienced a dramatic nationwide COVID surge early last year after three years of tight lockdowns and movement control measures weakened the population’s immunity. It is not clear how many people died from COVID-19 because of the sudden end to China’s “zero-COVID” restrictions in December 2022. Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the regime has drawn widespread criticism for its covering up of COVID-related information in a bid to downplay news that it deems harmful to its image.

The authorities have reported about 80,000 COVID-related deaths from early December to mid-February, but experts believe the total was much higher. Some have estimated deaths could have reached 6 million.

Experts expect the population decline to continue for decades, despite the waning effect of the COVID pandemic.

Long-term, U.N. experts see China’s population shrinking by 109 million by 2050, more than triple the decline of their previous forecast in 2019.

The working-age population, defined as those between 16 and 59 years old, fell to 61 percent of the total population, continuing a gradual decline. The proportion of those aged 60 and older ticked up to 21 percent.

The country’s retirement-age population, aged 60 and over, is expected to increase to more than 400 million by 2035—more than the entire population of the United States—from about 280 million people currently.

The state-run Chinese Academy of Sciences sees the pension system running out of money by 2035.

Zhu Guoping, a 57-year-old farmer in northwestern Gansu province, said his annual income of about 20,000 yuan ($2,779.59) leaves his family with meager savings.

He will receive a 160 yuan monthly pension once he turns 60, the equivalent of $22.

“The money is definitely not enough,” Zhu said. “Maybe our children can provide us with some support in the future.”

Less Babymaking

High childcare and education costs put many Chinese couples off having children, while uncertainty in the job market discourages women from pausing their careers.

Gender discrimination and traditional expectations that women assume the caretaker role in the family exacerbate the issue, demographers say.

Chinese communist regime’s leader Xi Jinping said last year that women should tell “good family tradition stories,” adding it was necessary to “actively cultivate a new culture of marriage and childbearing,” which he linked to national development.

Local authorities have announced various measures to encourage childbirth, including tax deductions, longer maternity leave, and housing subsidies.

But many of the policies have not been implemented due to insufficient funding and a lack of motivation by local authorities, said a Beijing policy institute, urging a unified nationwide family subsidy scheme instead.

Beijing resident Wang Weidong, 36, who works at an internet company, said he and his wife were reluctant to have a second child. “People will not have a child because of these incentives. The incentives are auxiliary, not the root cause. So I think it is harder to reverse this trend,” Wang said.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.