China’s population has fallen for the first time in more than 60 years, with the national birth rate hitting a record low [1] – 6.77 births per 1,000 people.
The population in 2022 – 1.4118 billion – fell by 850,000 from 2021.
China’s birth rate has been declining for years, prompting a slew of policies to try to slow the trend.
But seven years after scrapping the one-child policy, it has entered what one official described as an “era of negative population growth”. The whole of East Asia has below replacement level fertility rates.
The birth rate in 2022 was also down from 7.52 in 2021, according to China’s National Bureau of Statistics, which released the figures on Tuesday.
China’s population trends over the years have been largely shaped by the controversial one-child policy, which was introduced in 1979 to slow population growth. Families that violated the rules were fined or lost jobs, forced onto contraception or even made to have abortions.. In a culture that historically favours boys over girls, the policy had also led to forced abortions and a reportedly skewed gender ratio from the 1980s.
The population fell in 1961 because of the ‘Great Leap Forward’ policy which caused mass famine.