At 1.2 births per woman, the fertility rate in China is among the world’s lowest and far below that needed to maintain a stable population
The census found an extreme situation in Yichun. No Chinese city has as few children, as a share of its population. Just 7.4% of its 879,000 residents are under 14. For comparison, children in the same age range account for almost 18% of the Chinese population as a whole. Even in some of the greyest cities in Japan or South Korea, children are more common than in Yichun. The latest numbers are grim. In 2021 just 2,321 babies were born there, against 8,817 deaths.
Though exceptionally bad, Yichun’s baby bust reflects demographic woes across China’s north-east rustbelt. The total fertility rate in the province of Heilongjiang, of which Yichun is part, is just 0.76 babies per woman of child-bearing age. One cause is working adults heading south. Marriage rates are also falling among those who stay.
A shrinking population will test China’s growth-orientated political system. On May 5th President Xi Jinping signalled new realism about this challenge at a meeting of the Central Commission for Financial and Economic Affairs, a powerful body that he chairs. The commission heard that lower birth rates, an ageing population and demographic disparities between regions are a “new normal” to which policymakers must adapt.
Yichun is a good place to see these trends. In 2001 the city published a plan predicting that the population would grow to 1.4m by 2020: a spectacular overestimate. In person, officials still dodge questions about birth statistics, preferring to offer anecdotes about friends having babies.
China’s one-child policy limited births from 1980 to 2016. It left a heavy mark on cities like Yichun, with large state employers that enforced family-planning rules strictly. Now Heilongjiang offers subsidies to promote second and even third births. The money offered does not offset the economic pain of losing Yichun’s timber industry, says a man collecting his only grandchild from primary school. Before, he scoffs, “people wanted to have children but weren’t allowed.
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