China's population decline can be traced back to the restrictive family-planning policies launched in the 1970s and an impressive economic boom fueled by China's huge labor force. China's modernization brought rapid urbanization, rising income levels, and better education to large parts of the country.
The main reason: China's birth rate has plummeted to its lowest level since the founding of the People's Republic in 1949. Over the past seven years alone, the number of births has fallen by almost half, from 18 million in 2016 to 9.6 million in 2022.
The mean childbearing age in China has increased by nearly three years, rising to 28.8 in 2021 from 26.1 in 2000. Economic uncertainty is another factor in the falling birthrate: Fewer people are getting married due to the higher costs of raising a family and legal changes that make divorce more difficult.
China has become overpopulated due to many reasons, but the most plausible explanations are mostly because of food and water. Given that China has large areas of fertile land and good access to fresh water, it has the capacity to produce vast quantities of food to nourish large numbers of its people.
Japan's population has fallen for the 12th consecutive year, as deaths rise and the birth rate continues to sink, according to government data released Wednesday. The population stood at 124.49 million in 2022 – representing a decline of 556,000 from the previous year, figures show.
Russia's Population Decline Hits Record Rate
But even in the case of the average outlook, Russia's population is expected to dip below 146 million in the early parts of the 2021-2100 forecast period unless compensated by 900,000 migrants a year throughout that period.
South Korea has had the lowest fertility rate in the world since 2013. The fertility rate is the average number of children born to a woman in her reproductive years. The drop in fertility rates has left countries facing a future of aging populations and shrinking workforces.
When did the one-child policy end? The end of China's one-child policy was announced in late 2015, and it formally ended in 2016. Beginning in 2016, the Chinese government allowed all families to have two children, and in 2021 all married couples were permitted to have as many as three children.
The one-child policy (Simplified Chinese: 一孩政策) was a population planning initiative in China implemented between 1979 and 2015 to curb the country's population growth by restricting many families to a single child.
Demographic regrets
In 2015, the Chinese government did something it almost never does: It admitted it made a mistake, at least implicitly. The ruling Communist Party announced that it was ending its historic and coercive one-child policy, allowing all married couples to have up to two children.
Race & Ethnicity
The largest China racial/ethnic groups are White (96.9%) followed by Hispanic (1.7%) and Black (0.8%).
Indeed, according to current projections, China's population is likely to drop below 1 billion by 2080 and below 800 million by 2100.
After decades of a plunging birth rate, the country has begun an irreversible population decline that will reverberate throughout China and around the world for decades to come. Repercussions can already be felt in places like Anhui, where Ding's search for a wife was also hindered by an acute gender imbalance.
China is forecast to lose almost half of its people by 2100, plunging from more than 1.4 billion to 771 million inhabitants. Russia, Germany, South Korea and Spain are all set to join this downward movement, with their populations beginning to decline by 2030.
A greying population and the spiralling Covid crisis have placed additional stresses on it. China's population decline could send ripple effects across the global economy. For one, a shrinking workforce means rising labour costs, which could increase consumption and production costs.
Families in China can now have as many children as they like without facing fines or other consequences, the Chinese government said late Tuesday. The move followed China's announcement on May 31 that families could now have three children each.
Since 2016, the authorities moved swiftly from a one- to two- to three-child policy.
China has announced that it will allow couples to have up to three children, after census data showed a steep decline in birth rates. China scrapped its decades-old one-child policy in 2016, replacing it with a two-child limit which has failed to lead to a sustained upsurge in births.
Administration. The organizational structure of the two-child policy was housed under different governmental units since its conception in the 1960s.
What If A Family In China Had Twins Under The One-Child Policy? That's not a problem. While many stress the one child component of the policy, it's better to understand it as a one birth per family rule. In other words, if a woman gives birth to twins or triplets in one birthing, she won't be penalized in any way.
To support the development of all children, income limits for people eligible for child care allowances will be abolished and the allowance will be extended until the children graduate from high school. Currently, a child care allowance of ¥15,000 is paid for every child per month until they reach the age of 3.
In the past 20 years, South Korea has recorded some of the lowest fertility and marriage levels in the world. As of 2021, South Korea is the country with the world's lowest total fertility rate at 0.81. The TFR of the capital Seoul was 0.63 in 2021.
Birth rate highs and lows
On the other side of the scale, the CIA estimates Monaco has the lowest birth rate in the world at 6.63 average annual births per 1,000 people per year.
In the table below, countries are ranked from the highest to lowest average births per woman in 2020. The African country of Niger currently has the highest fertility rate, at 6.9, which means on average, a woman in Niger will have seven children in her lifetime.