It is a highly symbolic turning point: China's population has officially shrunk for the first time since the Great Famine of 1961.

The National Bureau of Statistics in Beijing announced on Tuesday that the population had declined by 850,000 people in the past year.

Demographers predict an irreversible development that will accelerate in the coming decades.

Jacob Gunter from the Mercator Institute for Chinese Studies in Berlin speaks of a "demographic catastrophe" in view of the expected economic and social effects.

Friederike Böge

Political correspondent for China, North Korea and Mongolia.

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A forecast by the Shanghai Academy of Sciences assumes that the Chinese population could decrease by almost 60 percent by the year 2100.

Experts from the United Nations expect a less rapid decline of 109 million by 2050. The statistics office in Beijing put the number of inhabitants at the end of the year at 1.412 billion people.

India soon to be the most populous country

China is likely to lose the rank of the world's most populous country to India this year, if it hasn't already.

The United Nations forecast a population of 1.422 billion for India last year.

The number of newborns in China fell below 10 million in 2022 for the first time on record.

This corresponds to a birth rate of 6.77 per thousand inhabitants.

Fewer and fewer children have been born every year since 2016.

This is partly due to the high training costs, which are among the highest in the world.

The independent Chinese population research institute YuWa has calculated that educating a child in China between the ages of six and 14 costs the equivalent of 3,300 euros a year.

Last year, the zero-Covid policy was added as a reason for the low birth rate.

Many young women feared not having secure access to a hospital because of the harsh corona measures.

This concern was fueled by the case of a pregnant woman who lost her child in front of a hospital because she was not treated for lack of a PCR test.

The high level of youth unemployment as a result of the Corona policy and the uncertainty about further economic development are likely to have had a negative impact on the willingness to start a family.

Another reason for the rapid downward trend is the one-child policy, which was abolished in 2016.

Since the 1980s, it has led to mass abortions of female fetuses, as a result of which there are now significantly fewer women of childbearing age than men of the same age.

Chinese demographers early on warned the communist leadership of the consequences of an aging society.

However, the one-child policy was not relaxed until 2016.

The Communist Party now promotes the ideal of a family of five with three children.

Grants for parents and more day-care places

The population decline of 850,000 people was more dramatic than the United Nations predicted last summer.

However, some researchers, such as US-based gynecologist Yi Fuxian, believe that the population actually shrunk earlier and that the Chinese government delayed this symbolic turning point for political reasons.

In China, the strong decline in the birth rate has once again triggered a discussion about incentives for young families.

In recent days, several cities have announced one-off payments and monthly grants for parents.

The city of Shenzhen, for example, wants to support parents of three children with up to 37,500 yuan (5150 euros).

Experts like the economist James Liang are also calling for a massive expansion of crèche and daycare places.

According to his calculations, only 5.5 percent of Chinese children under the age of four are cared for in a crèche or day-care center.

In countries like France or Norway, the proportion is more than 50 percent, writes Liang together with other economists in a recent study.

China's population is getting older

They also recommend abolishing the high school entrance exam to reduce the cost of education, and reducing schooling by two years to allow women to start careers earlier and better combine it with family life.

The Communist Party is countering the reluctance to have children by spreading a conservative family image, which, as expected, tends to have the opposite effect.

At the same time, the proportion of the working population is falling.

According to forecasts, by 2035 almost a third of the population will be over 60 years old.

According to the previous Chinese retirement age, they would then be retired.

The Chinese government is trying to compensate for the expected shortage of workers through productivity increases and automation.

On the other hand, it is hardly to be expected that China, like other aging societies, could rely on immigration.

The death rate increased only slightly last year compared to the previous year, according to Tuesday's information.

The statistics office announced that deaths in connection with the most recent corona wave were not included.