Demographers calculate: China's population may start to shrink this year

In 2021, China's birth rate fell for the fifth year in a row to a record low of 7.
52 per 1,000 people
, the data showed .
Based on this figure, demographers estimate that China's total fertility rate (the number of children a person will have in a lifetime) fell to around 1.
15 , well below the replacement rate of 2.
1 and one of the lowest in the world
.

Young couples are deciding to have fewer children, "despite all kinds of new initiatives and publicity to promote fertility," said Yong Cai, a demographer at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
.

"China's population will decline rapidly," he predicted
.

The transition from growth to recession was astonishingly fast
.

Forecasts from a few years ago indicated that China's population would continue to grow until around 2027
.
last year when itPublished 2020 Census Results, Bureau of StatisticsThe total fertility rate remains at 1.
3
.

China's population policy has reversed course amid concerns that a shrinking and aging population will put pressure on pension systems and social services, and lead to an economic and geopolitical recession
.

The widely criticized one-child policy ended in 2016, allowing all couples to have two children
.
In May 2021, that limit reached three children
.
Some local governments have started offering monthly cash subsidies for couples with second and third children
.

Too little, too late, experts say
.

With overwork, low wages and low social support, few couples "make starting a family, or having another child, their top priority," Cao said
.

The Bureau of Statistics also reported that China is becoming increasingly urbanized, with nearly 65 percent of the population now living in urban areas, an increase of 0.
8 percentage points from 2020
.

People who migrate to cities are usually at the peak of their baby boom, said Wei Guo, a demographer at Nanjing University
.
Crowded housing, high living costs, and high education costs all "reduce people's willingness to have a second child, let alone a third
.

"

However, some demographers say concerns about a looming population crisis are overblown

"China is really getting older," said demographer Stuart Gitel Basten of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology