Births in China could drop below 8 million this year, setting a record low and further clouding the country’s gloomy demographic outlook, according to a leading medical academic.
“The expected number of births in 2023 is estimated to be around 7 million to 8 million,” Qiao Jie, dean of the Health Science Centre at Peking University, said on Tuesday at a forum on innovations in medical technologies.
She added that the number of Chinese newborns has been cut by around 40 per cent in the past five years, and that improving female fertility is the key to increasing China’s fertility rate.
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Illustrating just how bad she believes the situation has got, last year’s 9.56 million births in China represented the lowest total in modern history, and it was the first time the figure had dipped below 10 million.
The country’s plunging birth rate has increased public concern in recent years, with discussions pushed to new heights when it was revealed that China’s population shrank by 850,000 people last year, marking the first such fall since 1961.
The United Nations said in April that India was on the precipice of overtaking China as the world’s most populous country.
Population decline in the world’s second-largest economy could have profound economic consequences, including the deepening of an ageing society, reduced demands in housing and in the consumer market, as well as a shrinking labour pool and pension challenges.
Despite a slew of pronatalist incentives and slogans being rolled out across the country to encourage births, demographic experts have conceded that immediate effects are unlikely, while China should accept and adapt to the new norm.
Qiao pointed out that the reproductive capacity of childbearing-age women is a cause for concern, and this includes a further decrease in the number of childbearing-age women, increasing rates of infertility, and a high incidence of adverse pregnancies.
Technical obstacles also remain major contributions to improving women’s fertility, she added, with costly assisted reproductive medical devices still largely dependent on imports.
Greater investments are also needed to increase research into disease prevention for women and children, Qiao said.
As births plummeted, the number of kindergartens in China fell by 5,610 to 289,200 last year, marking the first drop since 2008.
Total students enrolled in kindergartens and preschools dropped by 3.7 per cent from a year earlier to 46.3 million in 2022, according to the Ministry of Education.
Last year, China’s urban jobs dropped by 8.4 million to 459.31 million, marking the first decline in six decades. And as the working-age population fell, the participation rate sank, and companies faced contractions amid economic downturns.
In addition to the conventional incentives such as cash rewards, parental leave and housing subsidies, authorities have launched various policies to encourage people to have more children, but the results have not been promising.
Experts have argued that colleges in China should accommodate postgraduate and doctoral students who want to start families, by offering financial and policy support.
But as the economy continues to struggle, and prospects are dim, young people in China are delaying marriage and taking a more passive approach to life.
Last year, wedding registrations declined to 6.83 million, marking the ninth consecutive annual decline and reaching the lowest level since the late 1970s.
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