China's population shrank last year for the first time in more than six decades, official data showed Tuesday, as the birth rate slows in the face of mounting financial pressures and shifting social attitudes.
Residents walk along a street in Hangzhou, in China’s eastern Zhejiang province on January 17, 2023. – China’s population shrank last year for the first time in more than six decades, official data showed January 17, 2023, as the world’s most populous country faces a looming demographic crisis. / China OUT / CHINA OUT
Analysts point to the soaring cost of living — as well as a growing number of women in the workforce and seeking higher education — as reasons behind the slowdown.“The unemployment rate is so high, Covid destroyed everything, there’s nothing we can do. Next year we’ll have declining growth again.” The last time China’s population declined was in the early 1960s when the country was battling the worst famine in its modern history, a result of the disastrous Mao Zedong agricultural policy known as the Great Leap Forward.
“The population will likely trend down from here in coming years,” Zhiwei Zhang of Pinpoint Asset Management said. And for those who were only children as a result of the policy, “there’s a lot of pressure when it comes to taking care of your parents and improving your quality of life in the future”, a young woman in Beijing told AFP.“For many women, having a child means that they have to give up on a lot of things they wanted to do,” Nancy, a 32-year-old e-commerce worker, explained.“Without children, the state and the nation have no future,” one comment on the Twitter-like Weibo service read.
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