China’s population fell for the first time in more than six decades last year, according to official figures released Tuesday, pointing to a demographic crisis in the world‘s most populous country.
“By the end of 2022, the national population was 1,411.75 million,” reported the National Statistics Office (ONE) in Beijing, specifying that it is “a decrease of 0.85 million since the end of 2021.”
The country’s birth rate has fallen to historic levels amid an aging population, an accelerating decline that analysts say could hurt economic growth and put pressure on public finances.
The last time China’s population declined was in 1960, when the country faced the worst famine in its modern history, caused by Mao Zedong’s agricultural policy called the Great Leap Forward.
China in 2016 lifted its strict one-child policy, imposed in the 1980s due to fears of overpopulation, and in 2021 began allowing couples to have three children.
But those authorizations failed to stem the demographic decline.