Slow, then fast
China’s population is falling. The world’s formerly most-populous nation reported its second straight year of decline, with the country’s citizen count dropping to 1.409 billion, as just ~9 million babies were born, down from 9.56 million last year.
It’s hard to overstate just how seismic a demographic shift the figures represent. China was, of course, known for its infamous one-child policy, which put restrictions on arguably one of the most fundamental of human rights: the ability to have a family. That policy was formed out of fears of overpopulation, as the country’s population soared past the 1 billion mark in the early 1980s. Although numerous exemptions were eventually granted, the policy existed — in at least some form — for roughly 35 years, shaping the very make-up of China for generations to come.
For a few years it appeared to be “mission accomplished” — as the birth rate leveled out, and an enormous affluent middle class began to emerge. However, China’s fertility rate kept dropping, leading authorities to relax its restrictions, abandoning the one-child policy in late 2015. While you’d have expected a baby boom with the lifting of the rules, quite the opposite happened, with birth rates falling sharply ever since, reaching a low of just 6.39 births per 1,000 people last year, a fraction of the figures seen in the 1980s.
Baby blues
In an ironic twist, the Chinese government has since tried to boost the falling birthrate by incentivizing mothers with tax breaks and free college tuition. However, these efforts have yet to take effect: the country’s natural population growth rate — calculated as the number of births minus deaths — now stands at -1.48%.
After COVID-19 surfaced in Wuhan, the country faced a series of strict lockdowns — the economic and social implications of which are still being felt. China’s youth unemployment rate hit an all-time high of 21.3% in June, before the statistics bureau suspended the release of further data (although it has, just in the last few days, reinstated these figures). Furthermore, the cost of raising a child in China is astronomical, deterring would-be mothers and fathers. In 2022 it stood at ~7x per capita GDP — almost double that of the US, and the second-highest globally.
While workplace discrimination has in part discouraged career-seeking women from starting a family, a social shift away from the traditional family model has also been seen amongst China’s youth. A survey of 2,459 students at Zhejiang Sci-Tech University found that 30% “have a negative attitude towards marriage”, coinciding with China’s marriage rate falling to a record low of ~6.8 million, almost half the number recorded just a decade ago. On social media site Weibo, the tag #thelastgeneration garnered millions of posts before being removed — but remains a popular slogan for the anti-family youth.
