Follow us on Telegram for the latest updates: https://t.me/mothershipsg

China's population has declined for the first time since 1961, which could result in serious implications for her economic and foreign policy in the future.

One-child policy

Bloomberg reported that China's National Bureau of Statistics said the Chinese population declined by about 850,000.

This comes after 9.56 million births in 2022 -- the lowest number since 1950.

The figure in 2022 was about a million lower than 2021, which saw 10.62 million births.

This would peg China's birth rate at 6.77 per thousand, down from 7.52 per thousand in 2021.

Moreover, there were 10.41 million deaths in 2022, an increase from around 10 million the year before.

Bloomberg attributed this to an increase of Covid-19-related deaths, but it is unclear whether the recent spate of pandemic deaths would have factored into official bookkeeping yet.

What is perhaps more likely is that there will be an even higher number of deaths in 2023, as more Covid-19 related deaths will be reported given that China has reversed her previous zero Covid stance and is treating the virus as an endemic one.

The low birth figure, the lowest since 1950, means that China will see its first population decline since 1961, a fact that both Bloomberg and Reuters noted, as the year the Great Famine ended in China.

Kang Yi, the head of China's National Statistic Bureau, attributed the fall in both birth numbers and population overall to Chinese citizens not wanting to have children.

He also said it was due to couples delaying marriage and pregnancy, as well as a fall in the number of women of childbearing age.

Reuters quoted Kang as saying that there was no need to be worried about the decline as "overall labour supply still exceeds demand".

Off by a decade

The Guardian quoted the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Yi Fuxin, a researcher on obstetrics and gynaecology, who is the author of a book on China's population change.

China's population began to decline 9-10 years earlier than Chinese officials and UN projections, meaning that China's real demographic crisis is beyond imagination and that all of China's past economic, social, defense, and foreign policies were based on faulty demographic data. https://t.co/UnPqn7gMen

— 易富贤Yi Fuxian《大国空巢》 (@fuxianyi) January 17, 2023

Yi said policy planning had been based on faulty data, as the decline in China's population was occurring nearly a decade before initial predictions.

This would mean that previous Chinese policy, especially related to social, economic, and defence policy were flawed, and would need adjustment in order to compensate for past errors.

China's demographic and economic outlook is much bleaker than expected. China will have to undergo a strategic contraction and adjust its social, economic, defense, and foreign policies. China will improve relations with the West. https://t.co/zYUDyr25l9

— 易富贤Yi Fuxian《大国空巢》 (@fuxianyi) January 17, 2023

A BBC Future article from June 2022 quoted the China Academy of Social Sciences that China's population would peak in 2029, as well as a 2019 United Nations report that predicted the peak to be in the 2030s.

These estimates now appear to be quite significantly off, with there being no indication that 2022 was an one-off error.

The Hong Kong Free Press attributed rising cost of living as part of the cause for the fall in population.

One expert quoted said Chinese families have also grown used to small number of members after several decades of the one-child policy.

Change at the top of the rankings.

China's impending population decline means she may be overtaken by India as the world's most populous nation as early as 2023.

This would mark the first change at the top of the world's population charts since records began in the 1950s.

The trend of economic development leading to decline in birth rates, and worries about smaller populations in China mean that she joins the ranks of fellow East Asian nations that are likewise dealing with similar concerns.

Notably, countries such as Japan and Singapore are also facing lowering birth rates, with Singapore's government trying its best to encourage more couples to have children, while Japan is grappling with looming population decline.

Related stories

Top image via Javier Quiroga/Unsplash