{"id":24838,"date":"2023-01-18T19:59:58","date_gmt":"2023-01-19T03:59:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=24838"},"modified":"2023-01-19T18:21:23","modified_gmt":"2023-01-20T02:21:23","slug":"chinas-first-population-fall-since-1961-creates-bleaker-outlook-for-country-but-good-news-for-the-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2023\/01\/18\/chinas-first-population-fall-since-1961-creates-bleaker-outlook-for-country-but-good-news-for-the-world\/","title":{"rendered":"CHINA\u2019S FIRST POPULATION FALL SINCE 1961 CREATES \u2018BLEAKER\u2019 OUTLOOK FOR COUNTRY [BUT GOOD NEWS FOR THE WORLD]"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Shift occurring nearly a decade ahead of forecasts heightens concerns over demographic time bomb<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A
 A woman holds a baby at a local park in Beijing, China. China\u2019s population has shrunk for the first time since 1961. Photograph: Kevin Frayer\/Getty Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Helen Davidson<\/a> in Taipei and agencies<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mon 16 Jan 2023 (TheGuardian.com)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

China has entered an \u201cera of negative population growth\u201d, after figures revealed a historic drop in the number of people for the first time since 1961.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The country had 1.41175 billion people at the end of 2022, compared with 1.41260 billion a year earlier, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Tuesday, a drop of 850,000. It marked the beginning of what is expected to be a long period of population decline<\/a>, despite major government efforts to reverse the trend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Speaking on the eve of the data\u2019s release, Cai Fang, vice-chairman of the Agriculture and Rural Affairs Committee of the National People\u2019s Congress, said China\u2019s population had reached its peak in 2022, much earlier than expected. \u201cExperts in the fields of population and economics have predicted that by 2022 or no later than 2023, my country will enter an era of negative population growth,\u201d Cai said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Visual<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

China\u2019s government has for several years been scrambling to encourage people to have more children, and stave off the looming demographic crisis caused by an ageing population. New policies have sought to ease the financial and social burdens<\/a> of child rearing, or to actively incentivise having children via subsidies and tax breaks. Some provinces or cities have announced cash payments to parents who have a second or third child. Last week the city of Shenzhen announced financial incentives<\/a> that translate into a total of 37,500 yuan ($5,550) for a three-child family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However after decades of a one-child policy that punitively discouraged having multiple children, and rising costs of modern living, resistance remains among couples.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At a press conference on Tuesday, Kang Yi, head of the National Bureau of Statistics, said China\u2019s overall labor supply still exceeded demand, and people should not worry about the population decline.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

China is on track to be\u00a0overtaken by India<\/a>\u00a0as the world\u2019s most populous nation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/interactive.guim.co.uk\/uploader\/embed\/2022\/11\/indiapop-zip\/giv-6562wl6SRLV918Ob\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last year\u2019s birthrate was 6.77 births per 1,000 people, down from a rate of 7.52 births in 2021, marking the lowest birthrate on record. In real numbers, there were more than one million fewer registered births in 2022 than the previous year\u2019s total of 10.62 million.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The country also logged its highest death rate since 1976, registering 7.37 deaths per 1,000 people compared with a rate of 7.18 deaths in 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cai said China\u2019s social policies needed to be adjusted, including aged care and pensions, a national financial burden which would worsen in the future and impact China\u2019s economic growth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/interactive.guim.co.uk\/uploader\/embed\/2023\/01\/china-population\/giv-6562uReAccAuALYu\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Online, some Chinese people were unsurprised by the announcement, saying the social pressures which were driving the low birthrate still remained.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHousing prices, welfare, education, healthcare \u2013 reasons why people can\u2019t afford to have children,\u201d said one commenter on Weibo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNow who dares to have children, housing prices are so expensive, no one wants to get married and even fall in love, let alone have children,\u201d said another.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNot talking about raising social security, only talking about raising the fertility rate, it\u2019s all just crap.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Tuesday China\u2019s government also announced the GDP had grown 3% in 2022<\/a>. That figure would mark one of the slowest periods of growth in decades, but was still higher than predicted, prompting some scepticism among analysts given the incredibly stringent zero-Covid restrictions in place during the fourth quarter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

China\u2019s stringent zero-Covid policies that were in place for three years before an abrupt reversal which has overwhelmed medical facilities, have caused further damage to the country\u2019s bleak demographic outlook, population experts have said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yi Fuxian, an obstetrics and gynaecology researcher at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and expert on China\u2019s population changes, said the decline in population was occurring almost a decade earlier than the country\u2019s government and the United Nations had projected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/interactive.guim.co.uk\/charts\/embed\/jan\/2023-01-17-10:55:17\/embed.html<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMeaning that China\u2019s real demographic crisis is beyond imagination and that all of China\u2019s past economic, social, defence, and foreign policies were based on faulty demographic data,\u201d Yi said on Twitter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cChina\u2019s demographic and economic outlook is much bleaker than expected. China will have to undergo a strategic contraction and adjust its social, economic, defence, and foreign policies. China will improve relations with the West.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Shift occurring nearly a decade ahead of forecasts heightens concerns over demographic time bomb Helen Davidson in Taipei and agencies Mon 16 Jan 2023 (TheGuardian.com) China has entered an \u201cera of negative population growth\u201d, after figures revealed a historic drop in the number of people for the first time since 1961…. Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24838"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24838"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24838\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24849,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24838\/revisions\/24849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24838"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24838"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24838"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}