China's population is about to shrink for the first time since the great famine struck 60 years ago. Here's what it means for the world
The world’s biggest nation is about to shrink. China accounts for more than one sixth of the world’s population.
Yet after four extraordinary decades in which China’s population has swelled from 660 million to 1.4 billion, its population is on track to turn down this year, for the first time since the great famine of 1959-1961.
According to the latest figures from China’s National Bureau of Statistics, China’s population grew from 1.41212 billion to just 1.41260 billion in 2021 a record low increase of just 480,000, a mere fraction of the annual growth of eight million or so common a decade ago.
While a reluctance to have children in the face of strict anti-COVID measures might have contributed to the slowdown in births, it has been coming for years.
China’s total fertility rate (births per woman) was 2.6 in the late 1980s well above the 2.1 needed to replace deaths.
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