The National Bureau of Statistics of China (NBSC) released an annual report Tuesday that China’s population had shrunk for the first time in decades.
The population in China has declined since Mao Zedong’s Great Leap Forward in the 1960s created a nationwide famine killing millions, according to The New York Times. The overall population totaled 1,411.75 million, a “decrease of 0.85 million” from 2021, without including figures from Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macao, according to the report. (RELATED: ‘It Is Unfortunate’: Fauci Bemoans China’s Decision To Lift ‘Flawed’ Lockdowns)
The report stated that births in China reached 6.77 per thousand with deaths totaling 7.37 per thousand. Males continued to exceed females by 32.37 million with a sex ratio of 104.69, meaning that for every 100 females there are 104 males in China.
Chinese citizens, ages 16-59, made up the majority of the population at 875.56 million or 62%, while ages 60 to 65 made up 19.8% of the population at 280.04 million and citizens 65 and over totaled 209.78 million or 14.9% of the Chinese population, according to the report. In 2022, 6.46 million Chinese citizens moved into urban areas increasing the number of urban permanent residents to 920.71 million, while rural areas saw a significant decrease in population after 7.31 million moved over the last year.
Chinese children wear protective masks as they wait to board trains at Beijing Railway station before the annual Spring Festival (Photo by Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)
China changed its one-child-per-family policy in 2016 to allow three children per household due to concerns about increasing mortality rates and population numbers while births continued to decline, according to the BBC. The government encouraged citizens to have more children and offered “supportive measures” to help families that are considering increasing their families.
China’s declining birth rate raises fears that the country will eventually not have enough workers to continue to propel its growing economy, according to the Times. The number of births has been falling for the past six years and Chinese citizens over the age of 60 are expected to make up nearly a third of the country’s population.
NBSC did not respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
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