China's population falls for first time since 1961 - BBC News

China's population has fallen for the first time in 60 years, with the national birth rate hitting a record low - 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 policies 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".

#China #BBCNews

[alexandermuller]

"Not all parents deserve kids but every kids deserve parents"

[rupamwani]

It's worse when you try to decrease it and then again try to increase it.

[thegreataturn]

The other important figure is the male to female ratio. During the one child rule people only wanted a boy, a lot of girls were just got rid of, I'm sure this will now be having a big impact.

[loot]

They're giving 3000 RMB for having a child but that won't even cover the cost of the hospital stay for the birth.

[Felix-Sited]

They've been under reporting this for decades. Why everyone is surprised, is so surprising.

[한지웅-kl]

Low birth is a Big problem in East Asia....
🇨🇳: 1.15
🇯🇵: 1.30
🇰🇷: 0.81
🇹🇼: 1.11
🇸🇬: 1.02

[bikokch]

I think it’s the same here in the UK. It’s really expensive to have kids nowadays unless you’re living close to your parents and they are willing to take care of your kids so both parents can go to work. Used to be okay to have one person working in a family, now it’s almost impossible, especially when child care fees are sky rocketed. It’s hard enough to pay the bills even without kids.

[robstrains]

People just do not want to bring children into this crazy world at the moment.

[RockdownPlus]

The sharks and other endangered species are so happy😃😃😃😃😃

[Usuality]

The population is set to fall possibly up to 500 million by 2100. Not to mention that soon, they'll have the highest elderly population and lowest young population in the world. Comparatively I mean. Even Japan will be better off according to some population statistics.

[PhantomDeth]

Yet if you try to talk about the exact same thing happening to Europeans and your comments will be deleted and you'll be called a 'racist'.

[MrBoliao]

I think there's is some kind of Chinese population decline globally. It isn't just China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore have witness a mere 1 birthrate. Even in Malaysia it is around 1.4 to 1.6 way below the 2.1 replacement rate.
Perhaps it's the urbanisation of the population and the lack of incentive to produce children that we have this crisis of not even replacing the population.

[gregmoore]

I guess the one child policy worked quite well, maybe too well!

[evangelicalsnever-lie]

Good for you China for lowering excessive population. Best for mankind to stay well clear of the tipping point.

[gunsumwong]

The fact is China has 22% of the world's population but has just 7% of the world's arable land to feed its people. Thus reducing population is a logical step forward for China. Low birth rate is a common feature of every developed country so may be China is in the process of changing from a developing to a developed country.

[livliv]

Yes. I am happy for them! Hope they become the developed status.

[Chozenfew]

Keep them jabs coming soon we'll be down to 1/3 of the population world wide.

[francogiobbimontesanti]

Here in Brazil we had our census 12 years after the last one. We were expecting to have 218 million people. Turns out we only have 207 million.

[BH-]

BBC does not ever have a single positive thing to say about China.

China used to have large population because it was a farming economy, and then it became world factory with cheap Labour.

The life expectancy of people has also increased dramatically in the last 20/30 years.

So while the population is not rising as fast but it isn’t as alarming as it seems.

[Mullet-ZubazPants]

The UK has 128 more people per sq km than China.

Even if you factor in the stat *Real Population Density Based on Food Growing Capacity* the UK still has 125 more people per sq km than China