China’s population declined for the first time in more than six decades last year, according to official figures released Tuesday.
“By the end of 2022, the national population was 1,411.75 million,” reported the National Statistics Office (ONE) in Beijing, which specifies that this implies “a decrease of 0.85 million since the end of 2021.”
The country’s birth rate has fallen to historic levels amid an aging population, an accelerated decline that analysts say could affect economic growth and put pressure on public finances, according to the AFP news agency.
The last time China’s population declined was in 1960, when the country faced the worst famine in its modern history, caused by Mao Zedong’s agricultural policy, dubbed the Great Leap Forward.
China in 2016 lifted a strict one-child policy, imposed in the 1980s due to fears of overpopulation, and in 2021 began allowing couples to have three children.
However, these authorizations failed to contain the demographic decline, concludes AFP.