China’s population dropped for the first time in 60 years
For several decades, China has been suffering from the consequences of the erroneous policy of “one family – one child” (1980-2015), which will lead the country to a terrible demographic crisis in the future. Its beginning can be seen already now. In 2022, China’s population did not grow as we are all used to seeing, but declined for the first time in six decades. This was reported by Reuters with reference to the National Bureau of Statistics of the People’s Republic of China.
The population of the PRC in 2022 decreased by 850 thousand people and now equals 1 billion 411 million 750 thousand. This is the first decrease in the population of China since 1961, the last Great Famine in the PRC. The decrease in births as a result of the increase in the financial status and education of women is only one of the factors of the decrease, the second was COVID-19, which brought with it uncertainty about the future, and also affected the number of babies born in 2022.
In addition, China is currently experiencing a colossal spike in the number of COVID-19 cases, with nearly 900 million people sick. Purely statistically, such an epidemic brought additional deaths, which also affected demography. As we already wrote, the EU again introduces COVID – testing for travelers from China. According to Bloomberg, China’s funeral system is paralyzed and crematoria are overflowing.
According to demographers’ forecasts, as a result of the “one family – one child” policy, by 2040 the number of elderly Chinese will reach a quarter of a billion and will exceed the number of the country’s residents younger than 20 years by 2-3 times. An imbalance in the age distribution of the population will lead to additional costs for pensions, social insurance and medical care, which will affect the GDP of the PRC.