The number of births in China dropped 10 percent previous year to hit their lowest level on record — a fall that comes despite a slew of government measures to back parents and amid increasing warnings that the nation become demographically imbalanced.
According to a report published by the National Health Commission, China had only 9.56 million births in 2022. It was the lowest figure since records started in 1949.
The high expenses of childcare and education, increasing unemployment, and job insecurity as well as gender discrimination have all prevented many young couples from having more than one child or even having children at all.
The country’s population also fell for the first time in six decades, plunging to 1.41 billion people.
That’s caused domestic demographers to grieve that China will get old before it gets rich, delaying the economy as revenues fall and government debt rises due to soaring health and welfare costs.
Much of the demographic downturn is the outcome of China’s one-child policy levied between 1980 and 2015, though the abandonment of that policy is having some impact.
Health authorities said that about 40 percent of Chinese newborns last year were the second child of a married couple, while 15 percent were from families with three or more children.
To spur the country’s flagging birth rate, Beijing has been rolling out a raft of measures, such as efforts to increase childcare and financial incentives, and President Xi Jinping presided over a meeting to study the topic.
