For the second year in a row, China’s population declines due to the COVID Crisis
China’s population declined for the second consecutive year in 2023, by 2.08 million people or 0.15%, reaching 1.409 billion, affected by the COVID crisis.
The National Bureau of Statistics stated that the total population in China decreased by 2.08 million people or 0.15% to 1.409 billion in 2023.
This decline is larger than the population decrease of 850,000 in 2022, marking the first decline since 1961 during the Great Famine in the era of Mao Zedong.
According to official data released early last year, China’s population declined for the first time since 1960-1961 when the country suffered from a famine that began in 1959, causing the death of tens of millions of people due to errors in the economic approach under the ‘Great Leap Forward’ policy.
China experienced a significant rise in COVID cases nationwide in early 2023, after 3 years of careful monitoring and quarantine measures that largely kept the virus under control until authorities suddenly lifted restrictions in December 2022.
Factors contributing to the decline in the desire to have children in 2023 include an increase in youth unemployment to record levels, a decrease in the salaries of many administrative employees, and a worsening crisis in the real estate sector, where more than two-thirds of family wealth is saved.
The new data raises concerns that the prospects for growth in the world’s second-largest economy are diminishing due to the declining number of workers and consumers. Meanwhile, rising costs of elderly care and retirement obligations put additional pressure on debt-laden local governments.
The United Nations expected India to become the world’s most populous country, surpassing China by around 3 million people, according to figures published last year.
This overall demographic decline is generally attributed to the significantly increased cost of living in China, as well as the cost of child-rearing. The educational attainment level of women has also risen, leading to a delay in childbirth.
In the long term, UN experts anticipate a reduction of China’s population by 109 million people by 2050, more than three times the decrease mentioned in their previous projections from 2019.
