The population of China is declining for the second consecutive year in 2023 due to low birth rate and COVID-19, according to the country’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
By the end of 2023, the national population was 1,409.67 million… a decrease of 2.08 million over that at the end of 2022.
China, which has experienced decades of steady population growth, lost 850,000 people in 2022, with its population shrinking for the first time since 1960. The statistics bureau reported 9.02 million births in 2023, with a birth rate of 6.39 per thousand, down from 9.56 million in 2022.
The country witnessed a massive spike in COVID last year, with the total number of deaths rising 6.6 per cent to 11.1 million. The death rate reached its highest since 1974 during the Cultural Revolution.
China’s birth rate had been plummeting for decades as a result of the “one-child policy,” implemented from 1980 to 2015. However, in 2016, the Chinese government decided to abandon the policy and started allowing couples to have three children in a family in 2021. However, the country is still struggling with the impact of the demographic crisis.
