What would happen if all the Chinese jumped at once? The answer to this old occurrence is that, in any case, it was somewhat less serious than if those jumping were Indians, who are more numerous today. While the cliché of overpopulation is changing its profile – Africa will soon take over – the Chinese statistical institute has just revealed that the country will lose two million inhabitants in 2023, confirming the change in trend registered a year earlier.
Exactly, the People’s Republic lost 2.08 million inhabitants last year, registering eleven million deaths against nine million births, roughly speaking. Immigration is almost symbolic and is not taken into consideration.
The data represents the second consecutive year of contraction, after the population decreased by 850,000 people in 2022, which marked the first decrease since the famine of 1961, caused by the failure of the Great Leap Forward. The population, which peaked between 2020 and 2021, now stands at 1,409 million inhabitants.
Last summer, India surpassed the People’s Republic of China in UN population estimates. There is no turning back, not even with a hypothetical reintegration of Taiwan, which has to deal with an even greater birth crisis.
The phenomenon can be extended to South Korea and Japan, despite enormous budgets to promote birth rates, in societies that maintain considerable suspicion towards immigration. Chinese demographers in particular attribute young people’s aversion to having more children to cultural changes and estimate that even an investment of 3% of GDP in encouraging procreation would not substantively change the trend.
Chinese society faces an added difficulty, with female participation in the workforce double that of India and much higher than that of Japan or South Korea, but not compensated by social policies. High house prices and, since the pandemic, a cooling economic outlook, have driven the fertility rate to new lows, around 1.1 children per woman.
It is worth remembering that, in 1980, Deng Xiao Ping introduced the one-child policy, which was in force until 2016. Something that has turned today’s China, not only into a country of parents of one child, but also of grandparents of one. only grandson. This last factor, added to the family values ??of Asian society, has allowed both spouses to work in most homes, thanks to the practical support of parents. The healthcare network in China is not on par with Western Europe, although the current debate is focused on extending it.
The Chinese government is aware of the aging of its society, which is not offset by the waves of immigration that have rejuvenated Europe and North America. In China there are already more “dependent seniors” than “dependent minors” and those over 65 years of age number more than 220 million Chinese.
Demographers agree that the end of the one-child policy – always one more for Tibetans, Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities – came late. Something confirmed by the almost desperate measure of authorizing three children per couple from 2021, when the effects of covid made the authorities take their hands on their heads. Not only because of its mortality – not evaluated in this statistic – but also because of the delay it caused in many paternity plans.
So much so that, when the agency conducted a macro survey of 31,000 Chinese couples, probing their willingness to have a third child, only 5% said it was part of their plans.
Immediate relief, according to the National Statistics Office itself, may not come from planning, but from superstition. The Year of the Dragon begins in February, according to the Chinese horoscope, traditionally a good omen, as demonstrated by the demographic rebound in 2012, when it last occurred. Another ray of hope is that in 2023 marriages increased again, after the pandemic pause. It should be said that in China, as in the rest of its surrounding countries, babies born out of wedlock are relatively few.
In any case, Xi Jinping’s China does not emphasize quantity but quality. He expects orderly urbanization (a third of Chinese people continue to live in rural areas, which are older) and of quality. Something that also applies to economic growth, 5.2% in 2023, far from the double-digit growth at the beginning of the century. Grow less to grow better is the command word. The Communist Party of China says it is content with GDP increasing annually around 4.5% over the next decade, as long as it is greener growth, with greater added value and better distributed socially and geographically.
The Asian giant registered 9.02 million births last year, in contrast to 9.5 million in 2022. This is the seventh consecutive decrease. Meanwhile, the death count increased by 700,000. Likewise, it is estimated that by 2035 there will be more than 400 million people over 60 in the Asian country, representing more than 30% of the Chinese population.
A factor that works against birth rates is the cultural preference for sons – as in India – that was more pronounced while the one-child policy was in force. Selective abortion means that, unlike what happens in the West, there are more men than women in China. Almost 105 men for every 100 women, despite greater female longevity.
It is not surprising that the 20th Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, held in 2022, advocated “increasing the birth rate by reducing the costs associated with pregnancy, childbirth, raising and schooling children.” It is also true that the cost for social security in a society of Confucian values ??is lower than that represented in European societies, which are more individualistic and have greater female emancipation.
The Chinese Academy of Sciences, for its part, observes that the pension system will have to introduce changes to be able to serve the mass of retirees expected from 2035. The amount of pensions in China, although it is increasing, is still symbolic in most cases. In India, meanwhile, only civil servants are guaranteed a pension, also modest. The secular resource continues to be filial help, especially demanding for the daughter (or daughter-in-law).
Although local governments are also pitching in with their own measures to promote birth rates, with tax cuts, housing subsidies or longer maternity leaves, with results yet to be evaluated.
Either way, UN experts estimate that China’s population could fall below the 1.3 billion mark by 2050. Along the way, a smaller workforce and a higher proportion of retirees will lead to a slowdown in the economy. economic growth. A respite for the West, although this growth will continue to exceed that of advanced European societies in the coming years. More China, with fewer Chinese.
