The death rate last year reached its highest level since the Cultural Revolution.
China's population fell for the second year in a row in 2023 due to record low birth rates and coronavirus deaths. According to the National Bureau of Statistics, the country's total population fell by 2.08 million to 1.409 billion.
This significantly exceeds the population decline of 850 thousand people in 2022, which was the first since 1961 during the Great Famine of the Mao Zedong era.
Early last year, China experienced a dramatic nationwide resurgence of the coronavirus after three years of stringent screening and quarantine measures kept the virus contained until authorities suddenly lifted restrictions in December 2022.
Total deaths rose 6.6% last year to 11.1 million, with the death rate reaching its highest level since the Cultural Revolution in 1974.
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New births fell 5.7% to 9.02 million and the fertility rate was a record low of 6.39 births per 1,000 people, down from 6.77 births in 2022.
The country's birth rate has been in steep decline for decades as a result of the one-child policy implemented from 1980 to 2015 and rapid urbanization during this period. As during previous economic booms in Japan and South Korea, large parts of the population have moved from China's rural farms to cities, where having children is more expensive.
In 2022, the birth rate in Japan was 6.3 per 1000 people, while in South Korea it was 4.9.
“As we have repeatedly seen in other low-fertility countries, declines in fertility are often very difficult to reverse,” says University of Michigan demographer Zhou Yun.
India overtook China as the world's most populous country last year, according to United Nations estimates, prompting renewed debate over the wisdom of moving some Chinese supply chains to other markets, especially as growing geopolitical tensions between Beijing and Washington.
China's population aged 60 years and over reached 296.97 million in 2023, accounting for about 21.1% of the total.
In the long term, UN experts predict that China's population will decline by 109 million by 2050, more than three times their previous forecast in 2019.
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