China’s population is getting smaller and smaller – and history explains why

by Andrea
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China's population is getting smaller and smaller – and history explains why

China's population is getting smaller and smaller – and history explains why

China’s population shrank again in 2024, for the third consecutive year, according to data released this Friday, which point to new demographic challenges in the second most populous nation in the world.

The population of China stood at 1.408 billion people, at the end of 2024, which represents, in relation to the same period of the previous year, a decrease of 1.39 million.

The numbers announced by the Government follow global trends, but especially in East Asia, where Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong and other countries and regions have seen rates of birth rate plummeting.

Three years ago, China joined Japan and most of Eastern Europe among countries whose populations are shrinking.

The reasons are, in many cases, similar:

  • O rapid aging of the population;
  • A lack of consumer markets;
  • O rising cost of living;
  • O labor force decline;
  • O labor force decline;

The rising cost of living, specifically, is leading young people to delay or exclude marriage and having children while they pursue higher education and careers. Although people are living longer, this is not enough to keep up with the rate of new births.

Furthermore, countries like China allow very little immigrationwhich leaves them especially at risk.

A little history about the Chinese population

China has long been among the most populous nations in the world, facing invasions, floods and other natural disasters to maintain a population that prospered on rice in the south and wheat in the north.

After the end of the Second World War and the rise to power of the Communist Party in 1949, large families emerged again and the population doubled in just three decades, even after tens of millions of people died in the Great Leap Forward, which sought to revolutionize agriculture and industry, and in the Cultural Revolution that followed a few years later.

After the end of the Cultural Revolution and the death of leader Mao Zedong, the communist regime began to worry that the country’s population was outgrowing its ability to feed itself and began to implement the “one child policy”.

Although it was never a law, the women had to ask for permission to have children and offenders could face forced late-term abortions and birth control procedures, huge fines and the prospect of their child being deprived of an identification number, effectively making them illegal in their own country.

Rural China, where preference for male offspring was especially strong and where two children were still ostensibly permitted, became the focus of Government efforts, with women required to provide proof that they were menstruating and buildings bearing messages such as “have fewer children, have better children”.

The Government sought to eradicate sex-selective abortion of female children, but with abortions legal and easily available, operators of illicit ultrasound machines thrived.

This has been the main factor in China’s gender ratio imbalance, with tens of millions more boys than womenwhich raises the possibility of social instability.

An increasingly “shrinking” country

Data released this Friday revealed that the imbalance between the sexes is 104.34 men for every 100 women, although independent groups consider that the difference is considerably greater.

More worrying for the Government was the drastic fall in the birth rate, with China’s total population expected to decline for the first time in decades in 2023 and China expected to be overtaken by India as the most populous nation in the world in the same year.

The rising cost of living, the rapid aging of the population, the decline of the labor force, the lack of consumer markets and migration abroad are placing the system under strong pressure.

As spending on the military and flashy infrastructure projects continues to rise, China’s already fragile social security system is faltering, with a growing number of Chinese refusing to pay into the pension system, which is underfunded.

Currently, 22% of the total population, or 310.3 million people, are aged 60 or over. The expectation is that, in 2035, this number will exceed 30%, which raises the discussion of changes in the official retirement age, which is one of the lowest in the world. With fewer students, some vacant schools and kindergartens are, however, being transformed into care centers for the elderly.

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