Birthrate dropped to record low last year
Print Edition
CHINA’S birthrate plummeted to a record low last year, highlighting an aging workforce, a slowing economy and the weakest population growth in decades.
China relaxed its “one-child policy,” one of the world’s strictest family planning regulations, in 2016, allowing couples to have two children. Earlier this year that was extended to three children.
But last year, China recorded 8.52 births per 1,000 people according to the 2021 Statistical Yearbook released in the past week, the lowest figure since the yearbook data began in 1978.
It is a marked drop from the previous year’s 10.41, and the lowest figure since the People’s Republic of China was founded in 1949, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.
In addition, the yearbook showed the number of marriages registered in 2020 reached a 17-year low, with only 8.14 million couples tying the knot last year.
During the initial Covid-19 outbreak, parts of central China were placed under strict lockdown for months and across the country many government offices were temporarily closed. For most of last year, there were few restrictions on weddings proceeding as normal.
The number of divorces fell for the first time in at least 30 years. The census results in May showed that the population grew at its slowest rate since the 1960s.
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