China’s population crisis is here to stay, but is Beijing doing enough to limit the fallout?

Births in Anhui province this year may only reach 530,000, or about half the number it recorded in 2017, according to local authorities.
The situation is indicative of China’s larger demographic crisis, but Beijing has woken up to the challenge and is encouraging more births

Zhou Xin

Published: 4:00pm, 4 Oct 2021

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It is shocking to hear the government of Anhui, a rural province in central China that is traditionally a key source of migrant workers for coastal areas, acknowledge its birth rate is “falling off a cliff”.

The province, which has a population that is slightly smaller than France, may only have 530,000 births this year, which would be about half the 984,000 it recorded in 2017, according to local authorities. France, as a reference, had 696,900 births last year.

The situation in Anhui is indicative of a nationwide demographic crisis. China’s births have dropped to their lowest level since the Great Famine and are set to fall further. Some estimates see the nation’s births slipping below 10 million this year, from 12 million that were officially reported in 2020.

The central government, which only this year allowed couples to have three children, has woken up to the challenge and is rolling out a range of policies to encourage more births.

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Following 40 years of restrictions on couples having “unplanned” babies, families from this year on will not be punished with fines or dismissed from government jobs if they decide to have more children than the state quota.

Though Beijing courted criticism last month when it said it would reduce the number of abortions performed for “non-medical reasons”, it is a major departure from the home raids and notorious forced abortions used during the one-child policy era.

In short, China’s family planning policy has taken a U-turn in 2021 from punishing births to encouraging couples to have babies, as the demographic crisis is too obvious to be ignored.

But the experience of rich economies, particularly neighbouring Japan and South Korea, show it is extremely hard to boost births in a competitive society. It is much easier to find a couple with no kids in a large Chinese city like Beijing and Shanghai than to meet a couple with three.

China’s shifting demographic picture will put pressure on its economic prospects and property prices for years to come

In retrospect, China’s infamous one-child policy was implemented for too long and was too harsh. It was justified by the blind belief the population was excessively big.

Bureaucratic inertia from China’s family planning apparatus helped prolong the mistaken policy when facts on the ground had changed.

Looking forward, China’s shifting demographic picture will put pressure on its economic prospects and property prices for years to come.

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: A population crisis of China’s own making