China’s Population Declines For Third Straight Year Amid Rising Economic Struggles

China’s population declined for a third straight year in 2024, the National Bureau of Statistics of China reported on Friday.

The total population of China stood at 1.408 billion at the end of 2024, a decline of 1.39 million from 2023, according to the press release. The country’s continuous population decline is largely due to low fertility rates, which have been steadily declining for half a century.

China introduced a nationwide one-child policy in the late 1970’s in an attempt to reduce the country’s massive population. The end of the one-child policy was announced in late 2015, and it formally ended in 2016, according to Britannica. The Chinese government allowed all families to have two children beginning in 2016, and in 2021 all married couples were allowed to have up to three children, Britannica reported.

Since China switched to a three-child policy in 2021, it has been running national campaigns to encourage a “pro-birth culture” due to its aging and declining population, CNN reported. Various factors such as higher living costs and educational expenses have deterred some Chinese women from having children.

Beijing’s economy has been marred by various struggles over the past several years, including an unstablehousing market, and staggering levels of national debt. Notably, China also has a massive unsold inventory of housing, which Goldman Sachs researchers estimated in November would amount to $13 trillion if it were fully built.

Meanwhile, China’s national government debt reached $4,230.0 billion as of December 2023, up from $3,750.7 billion the previous year, according to CEIC Data. The country also saw massive economic losses during the Chinese government’s stringent “zero-Covid” lockdowns amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

The second largest economy in the world’s gross domestic product (GDP) was worth $17794.78 billion in 2023. The country’s GDP rose 5.4% in the fourth quarter of 2024, beating expectations. In December, Chinese President Xi Jinping pledged that his country would enact more proactive economic policies in 2025, Reuters reported.

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