The report that China’s population has declined for the first time in 60 years was one of the most discussed news on Tuesday. Even despite the fact that it was not a perfect sensation. While the Chinese media are explaining that nothing terrible has happened, the international media are speculating about the extent of the crisis and even talking about China losing its status as the world’s “production shop” and the locomotive of the world economy.
Financial Times (London, UK)
The most populous country in the world has long been a key source of labor and demand, generating (economic.— “uh”) growth in China and around the world. On Tuesday, the National Statistical Office announced … the first reduction in (population.— “uh”) for 60 years. “This is a truly historic watershed, the beginning of a long-term and irreversible population decline,” says Wang Feng, an expert on Chinese demography at the University of California, Irvine…
The decline is rooted in Beijing’s “one family, one child” policy established in 1980… The authorities abolished this policy in 2016, replacing it with a two-child limit, but the absolute number of births continued to decline every year… Fuxian Yi, demographer at the University of Wisconsin-Madison … says: “China is facing a demographic crisis that far exceeds the imagination of both the Chinese authorities and the international community”… Some economists believe that the increase in automation will be able to offset the increase in wage costs due to the reduction in the number of workers… But the fact that the system The country’s social security and medical infrastructure is not prepared for an aging population, most analysts agree.
Chinese authorities have sought to slow this moment for years by loosening the one-child policy and encouraging families to have children. None of this worked. Now, facing a declining population, along with a long-term increase in life expectancy, the country is in a demographic crisis that will have repercussions not only for China and its economy, but for the entire world…
Over the past four decades, China has emerged as an economic powerhouse and global manufacturing hub. The transition from widespread poverty to the status of the world’s second economy has led to rising life expectancy, which has contributed to the current population decline… This trend brings another worrying event closer: the day when China will lack enough working-age people to drive that high-speed growth, making the country one of the locomotives of the world economy…
Will the government be able to provide wide access to medical services, assistance to the elderly, a stable income (for the elderly.— “uh”) will affect the long-standing belief that the Communist Party can provide a better life for its people.
The Guardian (London, UK)
The Chinese government has been trying for several years to convince citizens to have more children and thereby contain the impending demographic crisis due to an aging population. The new measures were aimed at reducing the financial and social burden of having and raising children, as well as actively encouraging childbearing through subsidies and tax breaks. Some provinces and cities gave cash payments to parents who had a second or third child. Last week, the city of Shenzhen announced $5,500 in financial support for families with three children.
However, after decades of one-family-one-child policies that punished having more than one child, and with the cost of living rising, many couples are reluctant to have children…
“Housing prices, social benefits, education, health care are the reasons why people cannot afford to have children,” one Weibo user writes, commenting on the news. “Who dares to have children now: housing is so expensive that no one wants to even create a family, even fall in love, let alone give birth to children,” writes another.
CNN (Atlanta, Georgia, USA)
According to official figures, the elderly make up one-fifth of China’s 1.4 billion population. The number of those aged 60 and over increased last year to 280 million, accounting for 19.8% of the total population. Compared to 2021, this is an increase in the number of older people by 13 million people.
The aging of the Chinese population is following the same trajectory as in the developed economies of Asia. Birth rates in Japan and South Korea are also collapsing, their populations are aging and shrinking, and the same is happening with economic development, which creates problems for their governments, which are forced to maintain a large elderly population in the face of shrinking labor reserves.
China’s negative population growth is thought to be a natural consequence of decades of low birth rates. However, contrary to this popular belief… that China does not have negative population growth, but zero. Behind this is the fact that the COVID-19 pandemic has largely suppressed childbearing over the past three years. For example, people planning a child have been advised not to get vaccinated against the coronavirus. And those who became infected were advised not to conceive a child in the next six months after receiving a negative test for COVID-19.
In addition, the effect of the introduction in 2021 of the policy of having a third child will still manifest itself. Moreover, the report of the 20th Congress of the CCP spelled out a system of measures to promote the birth rate, which means that the government will do more to encourage the birth of children in the coming years. More research is needed before concluding that China has indeed entered a period of negative population growth.
