Advertisement
China population: forget 2 or 3 kids, getting couples to have the first ‘most pressing problem’
- With almost 100 million people, Henan province saw just 920,000 births last year – almost a quarter less than in 2019
- Beijing has been pushing couples to have multiple children, but policy advisers warn that more must be done to reduce the cost of childbearing and parenting
Reading Time:3 minutes
Why you can trust SCMP
35
With one of China’s most populous provinces saying its birth rate has plunged to a more than four-decade low, Beijing’s policy advisers are warning against the potential pitfalls of not doing enough to encourage couples to have a first child.
Advertisement
Henan province, the country’s third-most-populous administrative region, with 99.36 million people, has reported that its number of newborns fell to 920,000 last year – a 23.3 per cent decline from 2019 – as the birth rate dropped to 9.24 births per 1,000 people.
The birth rate and total births were at their lowest points on record since data was first made available in 1978, according to the province’s latest statistical yearbook.
The official regional readings offer fresh insight into the dwindling population growth and increasingly ageing society of the world’s second-largest economy, where births fell by 18 per cent in 2020 to just 12 million, marking a near six-decade low.
Experts have warned that a demographic turning point may be just around the corner in the world’s most populous nation, and some say it threatens to erode the foundation of China’s booming economic growth over the past 40 years while heaping pressure on Beijing’s inward-facing consumption strategy, known as dual circulation.
Beijing has already taken steps to curb the trend, such as by allowing couples to have a third child and by trying to reduce abortions for “non-medical” purposes.
Advertisement