Dear MEL Topic Readers,
China census: Data shows slowest population growth in decades
According to the once-a-decade census in late 2020, only 12 million babies were born last year in China, 20% percent fewer than the previous year and six million fewer than in 2016. The world’s most populous country with a population of a little over 1.4 billion is now facing fast-aging and fewer children problems, which are going to affect the nation’s workforce and social welfare system. The trend hasn’t changed even after the controversial, decades-long one-child policy was lifted in 2016. It is now just a matter of time when the nation’s population starts to decline like South Korea where the fertility rate is under 1.1 births per woman. Accordingly, China’s working-age population, aged between 16 and 59, declined by 40 million in the last 10 years. Though the trend isn’t limited to China, it is still the most populous country and its economy is the second-largest in the world. Both their production capacity and consumption power affect the world’s economy. One way to cope with the workforce decline is to extend the retirement ages, 60 years for male workers, 55 for female office workers, and 50 for female workers for now, which are much younger than other developed nations. But will people be willing to work longer? Also, young people aren’t rushing to marry, and even after they get married, they are not encouraged to have more than one baby because of the attention and money needed to raise children. Indeed, most of them are the only child of their families. It might have become the most common lifestyle in China and other eastern Asian countries like Japan and Korea.
Enjoy reading the article and learn about what China’s census report tells us.
No comments:
Post a Comment