China’s population fell for the third consecutive year in 2024, authorities reported on Friday.
The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said China’s population declined by 1.39 million in 2024, reaching 1.408 billion, as deaths continued to surpass births.
Data released earlier in January 2024 had shown a 2.08 million decline in 2023, bringing the population to 1.409 billion. This decline was double the previous year’s, which marked the first population drop in 60 years in China.
Recent efforts by China to curb the declining birthrate have not succeeded in reversing the long-term trend, with the NBS acknowledging that the country is facing several challenges.
In its report released on Friday, the bureau said: “We must be aware that the adverse effects brought by the external environment are increasing, the domestic demands are insufficient, some enterprises have difficulties in production and operation, and the economy is still facing difficulties and challenges.”
The statistics bureau reported that China recorded 9.54 million births in 2024, up from 9.02 million in 2023. The birth rate increased to 6.77 births per 1,000 people in 2024, compared to 6.39 per 1,000 people in 2023. In 2023, marriages increased by 12.4 per cent compared to the previous year, following the end of the Covid-19 pandemic. This led to a short-lived rise in births in certain areas during the first half of 2024.
Last year was also the “Year of the Dragon” in China, which is considered auspicious in the country and is traditionally linked to a slight baby boom across Asia. However, experts indicate that the overall trend is declining.
The number of deaths decreased to 10.93 million in 2024, down from 11.1 million in 2023.
“In the medium and long term, the annual number of births in my country will continue to decline,” Ren Yuan, a professor at Fudan University’s Institute of Population Studies told The New York Times.
China’s birth rates have been declining for decades, driven by the “one-child policy” implemented from 1980 to 2015, along with rapid urbanisation.
The country officially ended its “one-child policy” in 2016, a measure that had been in place for decades to control the country’s population growth. However, the policy resulted in a skewed population due to a cultural preference for male children.
The high cost of childcare, education, job uncertainty, and a slowing economy have discouraged many young Chinese from marrying and starting families, demographers believe. They also point to gender discrimination and traditional expectations for women to manage the household as contributing factors to the declining birthrate.
“Much of China’s population decline is rooted in entrenched structural reasons: Without fundamental structural transformations – from enhancing the social safety net to eliminating gender discrimination – the trend of population decline cannot be reversed,” Yun Zhou, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Michigan told Reuters.
In 2024, Chinese authorities introduced a series of measures to boost the birth rate. In December, they urged universities to incorporate marriage and “love education” into curricula to promote positive views on marriage, love, fertility, and family. In November, the state council called on local governments to allocate resources to address the population crisis and promote respect for childbearing and marriage at the “right age”.
The number of women of reproductive age in China is projected to fall by over two-thirds to under 100 million by the end of the century.
Meanwhile, China’s economy grew by 5 per cent in 2024, in line with government forecasts, but GDP growth is expected to slow further in the coming years.
In response to a demographic crisis, Beijing has introduced measures to gradually increase the mandatory retirement age, raising it from 60 to 63 for men, from 55 to 58 for women in managerial and technical roles, and maintaining the retirement age at 55 for all other women workers.
China is not alone in facing a demographic crisis; Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan are also experiencing population declines due to similar factors, including restrictions on immigration.
Additional reporting with agencies.
