China’s first population drop in six decades sounds alarm on demographic crisis

China’s population shrank last year for the first time in more than six decades, official data showed Tuesday, as the world’s most populous nation faces a looming demographic crisis. 

The nation of 1.4 billion has seen birth rates plunge to record lows as its workforce ages, in a rapid decline that analysts warn could stymie economic growth and pile pressure on strained public coffers.

The population stood at around 1,411,750,000 at the end of 2022, Beijing’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) reported Tuesday, a decrease of 850,000 from the end of the previous year.
The number of births was 9.56 million, the NBS said, while the number of deaths was 10.41 million.

The last time China’s population declined was in 1960, as the country battled the worst famine in its modern history, caused by the disastrous Mao Zedong agricultural policy known as the Great Leap Forward. China ended its strict “one-child policy” -- imposed in the 1980s owing to fears of overpopulation -- in 2016 and began allowing couples to have three children in 2021.
But that has failed to reverse the demographic decline.

Many point to the soaring cost of living -- as well as a growing number of women in the workforce and seeking higher education -- as being behind the slowdown.

The southern megacity of Shenzhen, now offers a birth bonus and allowances paid until the child is three years old.

A couple who has their first baby will automatically receive 3,000 yuan ($444), an amount that rises to 10,000 yuan for their third.
AFP.com, 17 Jan, 2023