Shanghai's population down in 2022, a first in five years
This is the first time in five years that the megalopolis of the Yangtze River Delta has been depopulated. AFP - HECTOR RETAMAL
Text by: RFI Follow
1 min
China is seeing its population decrease, Chinese cities too. According to figures released Tuesday (March 28th) by the National Bureau of Statistics, Shanghai lost residents last year for the first time in five years.
Advertising
Read more
With our correspondent in Beijing, Stéphane Lagarde
After Beijing, it is Shanghai's turn to see its population decrease. The center of the Chinese economic capital had 24.76 million inhabitants last year, compared to 24.89 million in 2021. Obviously, last spring's lockdown did not help. Due to the drastic health restrictions that forced Shanghai residents to stay at home for more than two months, also due to slowing factories and blocked access to the city, 250,000 migrant workers left Shanghai.
This is the first time in five years that the megalopolis of the Yangtze River Delta has been depopulated. The reasons are cyclical, but also structural. As in many places in China, Shanghai women do not want to have children or only want to have one because of the high cost of education, childcare, and more generally the cost of living in cities in the world's second largest economy.
Last week, Beijing also announced a decrease in its population, for the first time in 19 years. Statistics at half-mast, which are part of a general trend. For several years now, demographic seismographs have been panicking. Last year, China recorded its lowest birth rate in 60 years, at 6.77 per 1000,<> people.
► READ ALSO: Chinese population down: "A failure of Beijing's demographic policy"
Newsletter Receive all the international news directly in your mailbox
I subscribe
Follow all the international news by downloading the RFI application
Read on on the same topics:
- China
- Demography