China population: Why are numbers falling?

The number of people living in China has gone down for the first time in sixty years.

The national birth rate - which measures how many people are having babies - has hit a record low.

For a long time China has had the largest population in the world - but many think it could soon be overtaken by India.

So why is China's population is shrinking? Read on to find out more.

China's official population is currently 1.41175 billion. This makes it the country with the largest population in the world.

Last year it was 1.41260 billion - which means the population has shrunk by 850,000 people.

In a census from 2021, it was revealed that populations in other countries in East Asia are also shrinking, including in Japan and South Korea.

Fewer people are having babies in China - there are just 6.77 births per 1,000 people. In the UK, there are 10.08 births per 1,000 people.

There are lots of different reasons that people think the population is going down.

A big factor is Covid-19, which had a big impact on China's economy.

Covid-19 caused economic problems across the world as businesses like restaurants and shops were forced to close and many people couldn't go to work. This is one of the reasons for the current cost of living crisis in the UK.

Yue Su, an expert at the Economist Intelligence Unit, says when young people struggle to get jobs, it could discourage them from getting married or having children in the future, due to a lack of money.

To understand more about why China's population has been shrinking, we need to look back at the history of the country.

In 1979, the country introduced a strict law - called the one-child policy. This meant people were only allowed to have one child - so millions of Chinese children did not have any siblings.

This law was very strict - with people facing large fines or even losing their jobs if they had more than one child after the law was made.

This was kept in place until 2015, when the law was lifted.

Because this law was in place, people were limited to how many children they could have - which led to the population growth slowing down.

Click here to learn more about the history of the Republic of China

In China people are worried that, because fewer babies are being born, they will have a bigger elderly population.

More elderly people means more healthcare needed for the problems people face as they get older - which costs money.

Younger people are needed to work and pay taxes - money given to the government to pay for things like elderly care, hospitals and schools.

For the past few years, China's government has tried to encourage people to have more children - with some provinces even offering money to parents who decide to have more children.

Other countries are facing a similar situation of an ageing population.

In Japan, young families have been offered money to encourage them to move away from Tokyo and into the countryside, where the older population is bigger.