China has reported its first overall population decline in recent years due to an aging population and declining birth rates.
The National Bureau of Statistics reported that there have been 850,000 fewer people in the country at the end of 2022 than in the previous 12 months. It only includes the population of mainland China, excluding Hong Kong and Macau, in addition to foreign residents.
This totaled 1.411.75 billion, with 9.56 million births versus 10.41 million deaths, the office said at a Tuesday briefing.
The variety of men still outnumbers women by 722.06 million to 689.69 million, according to the bureau, as a results of the strict one-child policy, which only officially ended in 2016.
![A boy wearing a face mask carries a Chinese flag.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/01/China-Population-4.jpg?w=1024)
Since abandoning this policy, China has tried to encourage families to have a second and even a third child, but without success. The associated fee of raising children in Chinese cities is often cited as a cause, reflecting attitudes in much of East Asia where the birth rate has plummeted.
China has long been the most populous country in the world, but it surely is expected to be overtaken by India soon if it has not already done so. Estimates put India’s population at over 1.4 billion and still growing.
The last time China experienced a population decline is believed to have been during the Great Leap Forward in the late Nineteen Fifties, Mao Zedong’s disastrous pursuit of collective farming and industrialization that resulted in a massive famine that left tens of thousands and thousands dead.
![Travelers pass through a train departure board at Beijing West Railway Station, January 15, 2023. China has announced its first overall population decline in recent years due to an aging population and falling birth rates.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/01/China-Population-3.jpg?w=1024)
The bureau reported that the variety of Chinese working age 16 to 59 was 875.56 million, accounting for 62.0% of the country’s population, while the number of individuals aged 65 and over was 209.78 million, accounting for 14.9 % of total.
The statistics also showed increasing urbanization in a country that until recently was largely rural. In 2022, the everlasting urban population increased by 6.46 million to 920.71 million or 65.22%, while the rural population decreased by 7.31 million.
No direct comments have been made about the possible population impact of the COVID-19 outbreak, which was first detected in the city of Wuhan in central China before spreading worldwide. China has been accused by some experts of underestimating the variety of deaths from the virus by blaming them for the causes, but no estimates of the actual number have been released.
The United Nations estimated last 12 months that the world population reached 8 billion on November 15, and India will replace China as the world’s most populous country in 2023.
![China has long been the most populous country in the world, but it is expected to be overtaken by India soon if it has not already done so.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/01/China-Population-2.jpg?w=1024)
In a report published on World Population Day, the UN also said that global population growth fell below 1% in 2020, the first time since 1950.
Also on Tuesday, the bureau released figures showing China’s economic growth fell to the second-lowest level in no less than 4 a long time last 12 months under pressure from virus checks and a housing slump.
The info showed that the world’s No. 2 economy grew by 3% in 2022, lower than half from 8.1% in 2022. from the previous 12 months.
This was the second-lowest annual rate since no less than the Nineteen Seventies after 2020, when growth fell to 2.4% at the start of the coronavirus pandemic, although activity is recovering after the lifting of restrictions that kept thousands and thousands at home and sparked protests.