- The Irish Time
VIVA – According to Chinese government data, the country's population is shrinking for the first time in six decades. The population in 2022 was around 1.4118 billion - falling by 850,000 from 2021.
Population in China (excluding Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau) reached 1,411.75 million at the end of 2022, a drop of 850,000 from the previous year, the government said. This is smaller than India's population of 1,412 million in 2022, as estimated by the United Nations (UN).
The birth rate in China in 2022 dropped to 6.77 per 1,000 people, down from 7.52 the previous year. The birth rate in China reached a new record low in 1949 when Mao Zedong founded the Communist-led People's Republic of China.
Ilustrasi pelajar di China
- news.com.au
China's population has been aging and it is largely due to the "one-child policy" that began to be implemented in 1979. However, the policy was scrapped under President Xi Jinping's administration in 2016 due to growing concerns that the rapidly aging population would hamper China's economic expansion.
As information, deaths also outnumbered births for the first time last year in China. The country logged its highest death rate since 1976 - 7.37 deaths per 1,000 people, up from 7.18 the previous year, as quoted from BBC.
Earlier government data had heralded a demographic crisis, which would in the long run shrink China's labor force and increase the burden on healthcare and other social security costs.
Results from a once-a-decade census announced in 2021 showed China's population growing at its slowest pace in decades. Populations are also shrinking in other East Asian countries, such as Japan and South Korea.
