Officials Report China’s First Annual Population Fall in Decades, Economic Crisis Accompanied by COVID-19
The population of China fell last year for the first time since the 1960s, according to Chinese officials, with births dropping and deaths rising, strengthening fears about a long-term economic decline.Per a release by the country’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), the Chinese population declined by roughly 850,000 people to a total of 1.41175 billion in 2022. This is the first annual population decline in China officially reported since 1961—the last year of the country’s Great Famine. According to the Chinese regime’s data, the number of Chinese women classified as being of childbearing age, between 25 and 35, declined by roughly 4 million. Around 1 million fewer babies were born last year than in the year prior. The NBS reported 9.56 million births for 2022, down from 10.62 million in 2021. Meanwhile, the data reported that deaths rose from 10.14 million in 2021 to 10.41 in 2022. China’s deaths in pre-pandemic 2018 stood at 9.93 million. Births last year came in at 6.77 per 1,000 individuals, down from 7.52 per 1,000 in 2021. This is the lowest birth rate on record. The death rate, which was recorded at 7.37 per 1,000 people in 2022, is up from 7.18 in 2021 and is the highest since 1974. The gender ratio remained skewed in 2022, with 722.06 million males and 689.69 million females, meaning that there were 1.05 men for each woman in the country. The number of the working-age population—individuals between ages 16 and 59—came in at 875.56 million, making up 62 percent of the national population. Those aged 65 and above made up 14.9 percent of the total. The population data does not include people from Hong Kong, Macao, or foreign residents. Demographic and Economic Crises A falling, aging population can negatively affect the country’s economy. Some experts expect China’s economic crisis to be worse than what happened in Japan in the 1990s. Japan’s shrinking population has been blamed for years of low growth. China’s population data release came as Beijing announced that the country’s GDP only grew by 3 percent in 2022, down from 8.1 percent in 2021. The declining population is blamed mainly on the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP’s) one-child policy imposed in 1979, which insisted that couples can only have one kid. The Chinese regime resorted to forced sterilization and abortion to enforce the rule. In 1992, China’s Total Fertility Rate (TFR) fell below 2.1. Only if the TFR is above 2.1 will population growth remain constant. In recent years, China’s TFR is estimated to have fallen below 1.3. In an interview with The Epoch Times last year, Frank Tian Xie, a John M. Olin Palmetto professor in business and associate professor of marketing at the University of South Carolina Aiken, said that the low birth rate is an indication that younger Chinese citizens are now unwilling to have children. “Housing, education, childcare, and medical costs all add up to an absolutely prohibitive cost of having two more children,” he said. “Young people simply do not want to get married or have children as a result of the high costs.” COVID-19 Impact It is unclear how much the 2022 population figures were affected by the COVID-19 deaths. Though officially, China has declared a small number of deaths, Beijing has been accused of furnishing false data and underreporting such numbers. According to Worldometer, a prominent tracker, China has reported less than 5,300 COVID-19 deaths in total. The World Health Organization (WHO), which has blamed Chinese authorities for underreporting deaths, puts the total cumulative COVID-19 deaths in China at 34,028 as of Jan. 16. Responding to international pressure, Chinese officials on Jan. 14 then acknowledged that 59,938 COVID-related deaths had occurred between Dec. 8, 2022, and Jan. 12. However, many still questioned this updated figure, and remained uninformed about China’s total COVID death toll. In recent months, the virus has been spreading with greater intensity in China, with funeral homes across the country seeing higher activity than normal. “We now have 400 to 500 [cremated corpses] per day. Originally 90 [corpses] per day is already capped,” an employee of a funeral home in Shanghai told The Epoch Times on Dec. 28, 2022. “The staff are already working overtime.” Based on estimates cited by the Chinese language edition of The Epoch Times, the COVID-19 pandemic and the CCP’s “zero-COVID” measures have brought about hundreds of millions of deaths in China. The CCP is hiding the actual extent of the pandemic devastation from the international community and is also very likely misrepresenting the population drop, the report said. UPDATE: This article has been updated to make clear that the findings are based on the CCP’s official data. Naveen Athrappully is a news reporter covering business and world events at The Epoch Times.
Udumbara
The population of China fell last year for the first time since the 1960s, according to Chinese officials, with births dropping and deaths rising, strengthening fears about a long-term economic decline.
Per a release by the country’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), the Chinese population declined by roughly 850,000 people to a total of 1.41175 billion in 2022. This is the first annual population decline in China officially reported since 1961—the last year of the country’s Great Famine.
According to the Chinese regime’s data, the number of Chinese women classified as being of childbearing age, between 25 and 35, declined by roughly 4 million. Around 1 million fewer babies were born last year than in the year prior. The NBS reported 9.56 million births for 2022, down from 10.62 million in 2021.
Meanwhile, the data reported that deaths rose from 10.14 million in 2021 to 10.41 in 2022. China’s deaths in pre-pandemic 2018 stood at 9.93 million.
Births last year came in at 6.77 per 1,000 individuals, down from 7.52 per 1,000 in 2021. This is the lowest birth rate on record. The death rate, which was recorded at 7.37 per 1,000 people in 2022, is up from 7.18 in 2021 and is the highest since 1974.
The gender ratio remained skewed in 2022, with 722.06 million males and 689.69 million females, meaning that there were 1.05 men for each woman in the country.
The number of the working-age population—individuals between ages 16 and 59—came in at 875.56 million, making up 62 percent of the national population. Those aged 65 and above made up 14.9 percent of the total. The population data does not include people from Hong Kong, Macao, or foreign residents.
Demographic and Economic Crises
A falling, aging population can negatively affect the country’s economy. Some experts expect China’s economic crisis to be worse than what happened in Japan in the 1990s. Japan’s shrinking population has been blamed for years of low growth.
China’s population data release came as Beijing announced that the country’s GDP only grew by 3 percent in 2022, down from 8.1 percent in 2021.
The declining population is blamed mainly on the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP’s) one-child policy imposed in 1979, which insisted that couples can only have one kid. The Chinese regime resorted to forced sterilization and abortion to enforce the rule.
In 1992, China’s Total Fertility Rate (TFR) fell below 2.1. Only if the TFR is above 2.1 will population growth remain constant. In recent years, China’s TFR is estimated to have fallen below 1.3.
In an interview with The Epoch Times last year, Frank Tian Xie, a John M. Olin Palmetto professor in business and associate professor of marketing at the University of South Carolina Aiken, said that the low birth rate is an indication that younger Chinese citizens are now unwilling to have children.
“Housing, education, childcare, and medical costs all add up to an absolutely prohibitive cost of having two more children,” he said. “Young people simply do not want to get married or have children as a result of the high costs.”
COVID-19 Impact
It is unclear how much the 2022 population figures were affected by the COVID-19 deaths. Though officially, China has declared a small number of deaths, Beijing has been accused of furnishing false data and underreporting such numbers.
According to Worldometer, a prominent tracker, China has reported less than 5,300 COVID-19 deaths in total. The World Health Organization (WHO), which has blamed Chinese authorities for underreporting deaths, puts the total cumulative COVID-19 deaths in China at 34,028 as of Jan. 16.
Responding to international pressure, Chinese officials on Jan. 14 then acknowledged that 59,938 COVID-related deaths had occurred between Dec. 8, 2022, and Jan. 12. However, many still questioned this updated figure, and remained uninformed about China’s total COVID death toll.
In recent months, the virus has been spreading with greater intensity in China, with funeral homes across the country seeing higher activity than normal. “We now have 400 to 500 [cremated corpses] per day. Originally 90 [corpses] per day is already capped,” an employee of a funeral home in Shanghai told The Epoch Times on Dec. 28, 2022. “The staff are already working overtime.”
Based on estimates cited by the Chinese language edition of The Epoch Times, the COVID-19 pandemic and the CCP’s “zero-COVID” measures have brought about hundreds of millions of deaths in China. The CCP is hiding the actual extent of the pandemic devastation from the international community and is also very likely misrepresenting the population drop, the report said.
UPDATE: This article has been updated to make clear that the findings are based on the CCP’s official data.
