The United Nations’ Population Prospects 2024 report predicts that China’s population in 2100 could be half of its current level.
According to the report, by 2100, China’s population could return to its 1950s level of nearly 700 million people. The country’s current population is more than 1.4 billion. The decline is due to China having fewer women of childbearing age, people marrying later, and the growing trend of not having children.
The report found that the country is “likely to experience the largest absolute population decline (204 million) between 2024 and 2054,” ahead of Japan and Russia. India replaced China as the world’s most populous country in April 2023.
Demographers had expected a short-term recovery in the birth rate over the next few years, as the impact of Covid-19 eased, a series of policies to promote births were issued and the trend of having children in the Year of the Dragon picked up. However, in the long term, the number of births is expected to continue to decline.
The global fertility rate is currently 2.25 children per woman, the number needed to maintain a stable population size is 2.1 children per woman. China, along with nearly 20% of other countries, has fewer than 1.4 births per woman, according to the United Nations, a figure that is considered “extremely low.”
A Chinese couple takes their children to the park. Photo: Bloomberg
Estimates from the China Population and Development Research Center indicate that the national overall fertility rate will fall to 1.09 in 2022. The overall fertility rate in Shanghai, one of the country’s richest cities, will fall to 0.6 in 2023, according to the city government.
One of the reasons for China’s population decline is the decades-long one-child policy. The policy was intended to curb population growth and stimulate economic booms. It ultimately led to low birth rates and an aging population.
Covid-19, which has lasted more than two years, has also reduced birth rates. The pandemic has forced the country into lockdown, affecting the economy, health and psychology of many people.
Stuart Gietel-Basten, a professor at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, said that Chinese people are facing economic uncertainty caused by the pandemic, as well as the challenges of working from home. So starting a family in this environment is even more difficult, with women increasingly postponing plans to have children or get married.
According to Pew Research, the number of people leaving China each year is growing, which is also causing the population to decline. Since 1960, when the United Nations began compiling statistics, China has had a negative net migration rate—that is, more people leaving the country than coming in.
In 2021, the country had about 200,000 migrants. That’s down from the early 1990s, when about 750,000 people left China each year. The United Nations predicts that China will continue to experience negative net migration until at least 2100, with an estimated 310,000 people leaving the country each year.