China's population shrank last year for a third year in a row, its government said on Friday, pointing to further demographic challenges for the world's second-most populous country, which is now struggling with a growing population and working population. Both are facing an emerging shortage of older people.
China's population was 1.408 billion at the end of 2024, a decrease of 1.39 million from the previous year.
The figures announced by the government in Beijing follow trends around the world, but particularly in East Asia, where Japan, South Korea and other countries have seen their birth rates decline. China Three years ago, Japan and most of Eastern Europe joined other countries with shrinking populations.
The reasons are in many respects the same: rising costs of living are leading young people to delay or reject marriage and childbearing while pursuing higher education and careers. While people are living longer, it is not enough to keep up with the new birth rate.
Countries like China that allow very little immigration are particularly at risk.
China has long been among the world's most populous nations, enduring invasions, floods and other natural disasters to sustain a population that thrives on rice in the south and wheat in the north. After the end of World War II and the Communist Party's rise to power in 1949, large families re-emerged and the population doubled in just three decades, even after millions died in the Great Leap Forward that brought agriculture and industry. I was trying to bring revolution. The Cultural Revolution that followed a few years later.
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After the end of the Cultural Revolution and the death of leader Mao Zedong, communist bureaucrats became concerned that the country's population was outgrowing its ability to feed itself and began implementing a strict “one-child policy”. did it Although it was never a law, women had to apply for permission to have a child and violators faced forced late-term abortions and birth control procedures, heavy fines and having their child assigned an identification number. faced the possibility of deprivation, effectively rendering them non-citizens. .
Rural China, where preference for male offspring was particularly strong and two children was still apparently allowed, became the focus of government efforts. Gaya, where women were forced to provide proof that they were menstruating and buildings were decorated with slogans such as “The fewer children, the better.” It's baby.”
The government tried to end the elective abortion of women's children, but with abortion legal and readily available, illegal sonogram machine operators enjoyed a thriving business.
This has been a major factor in China's lopsided sex ratio, with millions more boys born for every 100 girls, adding to the potential for social instability in China's army of bachelors. Friday's report put the gender imbalance at 104.34 men for every 100 women, although independent groups report the imbalance to be significantly higher.
More troubling for the government was the rapidly falling birth rate, with China's total population falling for the first time in decades in 2023 and overtaking India as the world's most populous country in the same year. Left behind. A rapidly growing population, shrinking workforce, shrinking consumer markets and overseas migration are putting the system under severe pressure.
While spending on the military and flashy infrastructure projects continues to rise, China's already weak social security system is taking a beating, with a growing number of Chinese refusing to pay into an underfunded pension system. is
Already, a fifth of the population is aged 60 or over, with official figures at 310.3 million or 22% of the total population. By 2035, this number is predicted to exceed 30%, sparking debate about changes to the official retirement age, which is one of the youngest in the world. With fewer students, some empty schools and kindergartens are meanwhile being converted into care facilities for the elderly.
Such developments are lending some credence to the rumor that China, now the world's second-largest economy but facing major challenges, will “get old before it gets rich.”
Government incentives, including cash payments for up to three children and financial support for living expenses, have had only temporary effects.
Meanwhile, China continued its transition to an urban society, with 10 million more people moving to cities at a rate of 67 percent, up nearly one percentage point from last year.
© 2025 Canadian Press