Cost of education and change in social behavior. These are the two main factors in the decline in the birth rate in China. For the second year in a row, China’s population will decline in 2023, the Bureau of Statistics revealed on Tuesday. In 2022, China recorded its first population decline in six decades. And last year, it lost its title of “most populous country in the world” to India, according to the UN.
The government is trying to limit the decline through family allowances, which remain modest, abundant communication in favor of the birth rate or even by allowing all couples to have three children.
Semi-autonomous territories not included
“At the end of 2023, the national population was 1.40967 billion people” or “a decrease of 2.08 million compared to that at the end of 2022,” the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said on Wednesday.
The figure only includes people of Chinese nationality residing in mainland China. It does not include the inhabitants of the semi-autonomous Chinese territories of Hong Kong and Macao, nor those of Taiwan (island of 23 million inhabitants claimed by Beijing).
Lack of confidence and the cost of education
Last year’s decline was more than double that of 2022, when the country lost 850,000 people and its population shrank for the first time since the 1960s.
The demographic decline can be explained by several reasons, including the high cost of education, the lack of confidence in the economic future and the growing distrust of the institution of marriage – a necessary step in China before having children. .