Demographic data from many Chinese local governments show that China’s birth rate is declining significantly. Experts fear that “today’s Northeast is the nation’s tomorrow” and that China will face an economic and aging crisis in the future, citing the aging of the Northeast as an example.
China’s National Bureau of Statistics postponed the release of birth figures for 2020 at a press conference on Jan. 18. But birth statistics released by some local governments in China show that the nation’s birth population is declining, in some places plummeting 32 percent compared to the same period in 2019.
Liang Jianzhang, founder of China Crip and a professor at Peking University’s Guanghua School of Management, recently wrote an article pointing out that a national population collapse has arrived and that this decline will not bottom out if the fertility rate cannot be significantly boosted.
According to published data from around the country and local media sources, the number of births in the Wenzhou area in fiscal 2020 is about 73,230, down 19.01 percent from the same period in 2019; the number of births in Hefei City in 2020 is down about 23 percent from 2019; and the number of births in Taizhou City in 2020 is down 32.6 percent from 2019, Liang said in the article published in Caixin.com. In his article, Liang suggests that this should first be implemented by shifting fertility policies, lowering housing costs, and reducing tax rates in order to radically boost fertility rates.
Fuxian Yi, a researcher at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, is the author of the book “The Great Nation’s Empty Nest: China’s Family Planning Gone Astray” and is an expert in the field of Chinese population studies. He also recently tweeted on social media that “today’s Northeast is the nation’s tomorrow,” citing the Northeast, which has a lower fertility rate than the nation as an example.
Yi stressed that one of the reasons why the Northeast’s economic share of the country has dropped from 13.1 percent in 1980 to 9.1 percent in 2010 and 5.0 percent in 2020 is because of aging. By the Time other provinces reach the current age structure of the northeast, the economic growth rate will not reach the current level of the northeast, threatening to affect the national economic development.
“(The central government) predicts that the economy will double in 2035, and the economy will have an annual growth rate of 4.7 percent from 2021-2035. But from a demographic point of view, I think this is very unlikely. the Chinese economy may be able to maintain a 4 or 5 percent growth rate until 2025 without a problem, but after 2025 the economic growth rate will keep declining.” Yi Fuxian told the station.
Data from the National Bureau of Statistics show that the birth rate in the three northeastern provinces was only 0.61 percent in 2019, even lower than the 0.68 percent birth rate in Japan in the same year, which ranks first in the world in terms of aging.
Yi Fuxian combed through the reasons for the Northeast’s fertility rate decline ahead of the nation, including high urbanization levels, mostly immigrants with shallow roots in traditional fertility Culture, a high proportion of the institutional population that mostly abides by government family planning, national policies that easily penetrate the Northeast’s hearts and minds, and finally a low Marriage rate but a high divorce rate and a late age of marriage and childbirth.
Although the National Bureau of Statistics has delayed the release of 2020 birth data this year, some regions have released birth data for the entire year or first few months of 2020. Feinian Chen, a sociologist at the University of Maryland who studies population development, told the station that it is clear from past demographic observations that there is a huge drop in the population between the 25-29 age bracket and the 30-34 age bracket, the former being the prime age for Chinese women to have children, enough to be about 1 percent less than the next age bracket.
“That drop is about 1 percent, or about 14 million people. There’s a huge drop in the number of women who are capable of having children, or are in their prime childbearing years.” Chen Him Nim said.
She pointed out that if the fertility rate continues to be low in the future, the pressure of an aging population will follow, which will not only affect the economy, but also give rise to social problems such as care for the elderly population. Even if the government intends to save the fertility rate, it still won’t help for now.
“In the case of China, it’s happening much faster than the rest of the world because the fertility rate in China is falling rapidly and the mortality rate is falling as a result.” She said.
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