By Yi Fu-xian 易富賢
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China’s population decline, which the Chinese government officially confirmed last month, has led many observers to wonder if the country’s current demographic trends threaten its stability.
China’s population shrank last year for the first time in 60 years, nine years earlier than government projections had anticipated, the Chinese National Bureau of Statistics reported.
The fertility rate — births per woman — fell to 1.0 to 1.1, well below the official forecast of 1.8. Most notably, the number of births dropped sharply to 9.56 million, the fewest since 1790, despite China’s shift to a two-child policy in 2016, data showed.
However, this sharp drop in the number of births is an illusion caused by a gross exaggeration of pre-2020 numbers. For example, a sample survey from 2016 showed a fertility rate of 1.25 and only 13 million births, which was later inflated to 18.83 million.
Similarly, the UN’s World Population Prospects report, regarded as a reliable source for estimates and projections of Chinese demographic trends, is wrong every time.
Last year’s report said that China’s population began to decline last year — 10 years earlier than its 2019 projection — whereas I estimate that the decline began in 2018.
The latest report also predicted that China’s population would fall to 767 million in 2100, far below its earlier forecast of 1.065 billion.
World Population Prospects’ projections still overestimate China’s population.
While last year’s report put the Chinese population at 1.43 billion people, I estimate that it is smaller than 1.28 billion.
Moreover, the report said there were 28.2 million births in China in 1990 and 17.4 million in 2000. Yet the 1990 and 2000 censuses put the number of Chinese births at 23.7 million and 14.2 million respectively, which was confirmed by the number of ninth graders in 2004 and 2014.
Last year’s report also exaggerates China’s future population, predicting a fertility rate of 1.31 for 2023 to 2050 and 1.45 for 2051 to 2100. The fertility rate among Chinese in the region suggests otherwise.
Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau and Chinese Singaporeans have had average fertility rates of 1.0 to 1.1 — the lowest in the world — over the past two decades, despite local authorities’ pro-natalist policies.
China’s efforts to boost its fertility rate face three major challenges. First, the one-child policy has reshaped the Chinese economy, dramatically increasing the cost of raising children.
China’s household disposable income is equivalent to only 44 percent of its GDP, compared with 72 percent in the US and 65 percent in the UK.
The Chinese housing market was valued at four times the country’s GDP in 2020, whereas the US real-estate market is valued at 1.6 times GDP.
Chinese policymakers face a dilemma: If the real-estate bubble does not burst, young couples would be unable to afford to raise two children.
However, if the bubble does burst, China’s economy would slow and a global financial crisis could erupt.
Likewise, raising household disposable income to 60 percent to 70 percent of GDP to increase fertility could reduce the government’s power, undermining the economic foundations of its “authoritarian at home and aggressive abroad” policy approach.
Given these difficult trade-offs, Chinese policymakers might be more inclined to replicate Japanese policies to lower child-rearing costs, such as reducing school fees and providing convenient childcare, childbirth subsidies and housing benefits to young couples.
However, Japan’s approach has proved expensive and ineffective: The country’s fertility rate received a temporary boost, from 1.26 in 2005 to 1.45 in 2015, before falling back to 1.23 last year.
Moreover, because it is “getting old before it gets rich,” China lacks the financial wherewithal to emulate Japan.
There are physiological and cultural reasons for China’s demographic crisis.
With more women delaying marriage and childbirth, the country’s infertility rate has increased from 2 percent in the early 1980s to 18 percent in 2020.
From 2013 to 2021, the number of first marriages fell by more than half, and by three-quarters for 20-to-24-year-olds.
The one-child policy, which had been in place for 36 years, has irreversibly changed Chinese views of childbearing: Having one child — or none — has become the social norm.
The younger the cohort of Chinese women, the less willing to have children they seem to be.
One recent survey found that while the average number of intended children among women in China is 1.64, the average decreases to 1.54 for women born after 1990 and 1.48 for women born after 2000.
For comparison, in South Korea and Hong Kong, the average intended number of children is 1.92 and 1.41 respectively — both fertility rates are about half the intended figures.
If this declining interest in childbearing is any indication, China is likely to struggle to stabilize its fertility rate at 0.8, and its population could fall to less than 1.02 billion by 2050, and 310 million in 2100.
Ancient China also experienced population declines due to war and famine, but recovered quickly, similar to blood loss with normal regeneration. Modern population declines, like aplastic anemia, are hard to recover from.
Even if China can increase its fertility rate to 1.1 and prevent it from declining, its population would likely fall to 1.08 billion by 2050 and 440 million by 2100.
The country’s share of the world’s population, which declined from 37 percent in 1820 to 22 percent in 1950 to 1980, would fall to 11 percent in 2050 and 4 percent by 2100.
The effects of this population decline would be compounded by rapid aging, which would slow Chinese growth and likely increase government debt.
The share of Chinese people aged 65 and older would rise from 14 percent in 2020 to 35 percent in 2050.
Whereas five workers aged 20 to 64 supported every citizen aged 65 and older in 2020, the ratio would continue to decline to 2.4 workers in 2035 and 1.6 in 2050.
By that point, China’s pension crisis would develop into a humanitarian catastrophe.
Women, who on average live six to seven years longer than men, and are usually a few years younger than their spouses, would ultimately pay the price for this painful demographic shift.
Yi Fu-xian is a senior scientist in obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Copyright: Project Syndicate
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