BEIJING (Reuters) -China’s population fell last yr for the primary time since 1961, a historic turn that is anticipated to mark the beginning of an extended period of decline in its citizen numbers and see India turn out to be the world’s most populous nation in 2023.
The country had 1.41175 billion people at at the top of 2022, compared with 1.41260 billion a yr earlier, China’s National Bureau of Statistics said.
Last yr’s birth rate was 6.77 births per 1,000 people, down from a rate of seven.52 births in 2021 and marking the bottom birth rate on record.
China also logged its highest death rate since 1976, registering 7.37 deaths per 1,000 people compared with a rate of seven.18 deaths in 2021.
Much of the demographic downturn is the results of China’s one-child policy that it imposed between 1980 and 2015 in addition to sky-high education costs which have put many Chinese off having multiple child and even having any in any respect.
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China’s stringent zero-COVID policies that were in place for threee years before an abrupt reversal which has overwhelmed medical faciliites, have caused further damage to the country’s bleak demographic outlook, population experts have said.
Although local governments have since 2021 rolled out measures to encourage people to have more babies, including tax deductions, longer maternity leave and housing subsidies, the steps usually are not expected to arrest the long-term trend.
(Reporting by Albee Zhang in Beijing and Farah Master in Hong Kong; Editing by Edwina Gibbs)
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