Last year, China’s national birth rate fell to a record-low 6.77 births per 1,000 people, down from 7.52 per 1,000 in 2021. We investigate potential causes for the drop. So, what are the 4 reasons for China’s population shrinkage?
The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) of China revealed on Tuesday something that had been long anticipated but nevertheless surprised many: the population of the nation fell to 1.411 billion in 2022, a decrease of 850,000 from 2021.
For the first time in a very long time, deaths had overtaken births.
The last time China’s population saw a downward trend was in 1961, during the Great Famine which killed tens of millions and was “caused by former Communist Chairman Mao Zedong’s calamitous social experiment, the Great Leap Forward,” as Japan Times put it.
Experts agree that there is not one single reason for China’s population shrinkage.
So, we need to find out what are the 4 reasons for China’s population shrinkage. Here we go!
- One-child Policy
China had a one-child policy that was implemented in 1980 and then abandoned in 2016 when families were permitted to have two children. This idea did not turn out as expected.
The one-child policy in China resulted in more males being born (since boys were preferred) than females, and couples who had more than one child were punished and compelled to have abortions. The desired increase in childbirth did not occur, even after the policy was changed.
According to the BBC, “the country’s birth rate … has been falling over the past six years to reach a record low of 6.77 births per 1,000 people.”
2. New generations, new views
The beliefs of China’s youth differ from those of their parents and grandparents. The 37-year-old father of a three-year-old girl spoke with Japan Times about
Ding Ding, said: “People born in the 1980s or 1990s are not as keen to have children as our parents’ generation.”
He went on to say: “Our parents think if they have more children, they can get more care when they grow old. But the younger generation doesn’t think the same anymore, they have a different mentality. They think raising one child is already very tiring.”
Despite the Chinese government dropping the one-child policy in favour of two in 2016 and three in 2021, few couples felt the need to adopt it, according to another Japan Times article.
3. Increasing cost of raising children
According to research conducted by Beijing’s YuWa Population Research Institute, the average cost of raising a child in China in 2019 “stood at 485,000 yuan ($76,760), about seven times the country’s per capita GDP,” the Sixth Tone website said in February of that year.
The school took into account charges for the child’s pregnancy, birth, tuition, and other associated fees up until the age of 18, when the youngster became an adult.
Sixth Tone pointed out that “Raising a child until adulthood in China is costlier than in countries such as the United States, France, Germany, and Japan”.
4. Society’s pre-conceived notions
Some people are still dubious despite the Chinese government’s relaxation of the one-child restriction and its efforts to encourage young couples to start families.
According to the Japan Times, some Chinese internet users have been criticising businesses’ views toward women and their reluctance to assign women to coveted jobs out of concern that they could take time off to have and care for children.
“In the job market, they worry that if you’re 23-30, you’ll get married and have a kid, that if you’re 30-35 you’ll have a second or third one, and if you’re over 35, then sorry,” the Japan Times reported a user as saying.
“This kind of social setting is already the best form of contraception. All those policies to encourage births and open up will amount to nothing.”
To conclude, Robin Maynard, executive director of Population Matters, said: “The Chinese government could better manage this inevitable transition through encouraging and mobilising an older workforce instead of obsessing about birth rate – and move from the pursuit of economic power to one prioritising wellbeing, for the good of its own citizens and for the world.”
