China's Population Shrinking For The First Time In 60 Years. Here's Why

China, which has the world's largest population, has seen negative population growth in the year 2022. Government statistics revealed a historic drop in the number of people for the first time since 1961. Major repercussions are seen by experts for China, its economy, and the entire world.

The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) reported on Tuesday that China's population fell by 850,000 people to 1.4118 billion in 2022 from 1.4126 billion in the previous year as a result of more deaths than births.

According to South China Morning Post, mothers in China had 9.56 million babies last year, a 9.98 percent drop from 10.62 million in 2021. The national birth rate fell to a record low of 6.77 births for every 1,000 people in 2022, down from 7.52 in 2021, marking the lowest rate since records began in 1949.

This is the first time since the Great Leap Forward, Mao Zedong's catastrophic economic experiment that resulted in widespread famine and death in the early 1960s, that more people died in China than were born.

Elements causing the population decline

The SCMP reported that the population reduction was attributed to a number of factors, including high child-rearing costs, the new generation's changing views on marriage and family, a slowing economy in the midst of China's strict coronavirus regulations, and declining economic growth.

The communist leadership loosened its 35-year-old one-child policy in 2016, allowing families to have two children, in an effort to balance the potential negative effects this population drop could have on China's economic growth.The nation increased the cap once more, to three, in 2021.

Even after that, the communist nation continued to provide cash handouts, tax benefits, and even property concessions to couples and small families to encourage them to have babies.

According to New York Times, the result, some experts have argued, could have implications for the global order, with India's population poised to outgrow China's later this year, according to a recent estimate from the United Nations.