China’s government just announced its population has declined for the second straight year. Once the world’s most populous country, India officially surpassed China in 2023. Experts say the future of China’s workforce and economy are at stake.
China’s population dropped by 2.08 million in 2023, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. In 2022, China’s population declined by 850,000.
Experts said the accelerated decline is due to the record-low birth rate in the country, along with a surge in COVID-19 deaths after lockdowns lifted at the end of 2022. But the downward trend is expected to continue for decades, leading some to suggest the economy will face serious struggles with its shrinking labor force.
“This is a country that is in the advanced stages of demographic collapse, and this is going to be the final decade that China can exist as a modern industrialized nation-state because it simply is not going to have the people to even try,” geopolitical strategist Peter Zeihan said.
China’s birth rate has declined for decades, even before its one-child-per-family policy began in 1980. The government reversed the policy after 2015 to allow two and three children per family, but increasing the birth rate has proven a more difficult task than simply changing the policy. The birth rate continues to decline. In 2023, China said 9 million babies were born, more than half a million fewer than in 2022.
Meanwhile, China’s older population is proliferating, with estimates that people age 60 and older will surpass 400 million in 2035. Experts fear there soon won’t be enough working-age people to meet economic demands. China is dealing with a record number of unemployed youths, while debates on whether to move China-based supply chains to other markets are heating up.
While local governments have thought up incentives like tax deductions and longer maternity leave to encourage having children, a Beijing policy institute said many have not yet been implemented.
It may be too late to reverse course anytime soon. According to estimates by the United Nations, China’s population will shrink by 109 million by 2050, triple the decline previously estimated in 2019.
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