AMN WEB DESK
China recorded a population of 1.4126 billion at the end of 2021, a slight increase from 1.4121 billion in 2020 as population growth rate sunk to another record low in 2021, underscoring the ticking demographic time bomb that could hamper its growth in purchasing power and affect the economic production in the near future. The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said China’s population in 2021 increased by 480,000 in a year-on-year comparison from 2020. The number of new births in 2021 stood at 10.62 million, down from 12 million in 2020 as the number of births also dropped for the fifth consecutive year in 2021, data released on Monday showed. The world’s most populous country recorded a natural growth rate of 0.34 per thousand.
Experts have warned that a demographic turning point may be just around the corner in the world’s most populous nation, fearing that waning demographic dividend threatens to erode the foundation of China’s booming economic growth over the past 40 years. In such a situation, the ratio of people in the workforce and dependent persons (retired with pension and other benefits) may be adversely affected, straining the economy.
Chinese government has already taken steps to curb the trend, such as by allowing couples to have a third child and by trying to reduce abortions for “non-medical” purposes. Dozens of provincial and municipal authorities have also introduced their own initiatives to increase the birth rate. These include giving parents more days off work, or even financial support, for having a second or third child. Beijing, Sichuan and Jiangxi provinces have rolled out supportive measures such as increased parental leave, maternity leave, marriage leave and paternity leave, state news agency reported earlier.
China permitted all couples to have two children in 2016, scrapping the draconian decades-old one-child policy which policymakers blame for the current demographic crisis. In 2020, after the census showed that country’s population grew at its slowest pace to 1.412 billion, China permitted the couples to have a third child.
It is yet to be seen what kind of fruits China’s “three-child policy” will bear under the new announcements made by the govt to ease the “financial burden” of raising the kids in a scenario when the young generation is averse to getting married as shown by marriage data. Chinese President Xi Jinping’s “common prosperity” drive to close the gap between the rich and poor banned “for-profit” tutoring schools last July in a bid to reduce study workload of students and the financial burden on their parents.