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       China Told Women to Have Babies, but Its Population Shrank Again

       Faced with falling births, China’s efforts to stabilize a shrinking population and maintain economic growth are failing.

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       The frozen Liangma River in Beijing. The number of babies born in China declined for the seventh straight year in 2023. Credit...Gilles Sabrié for The New York Times

       By Alexandra Stevenson and Zixu Wang

       Reporting from Hong Kong

       Published Jan. 16, 2024Updated Jan. 17, 2024, 1:30 a.m. ET

       阅读简体中文版 阅读繁体中文版

       China’s ruling Communist Party is facing a national emergency. To fix it, the party wants more women to have more babies.

       It has offered them sweeteners, like cheaper housing, tax benefits and cash. It has also invoked patriotism, calling on them to be “good wives and mothers.”

       The efforts aren’t working. Chinese women have been shunning marriage and babies at such a rapid pace that China’s population in 2023 shrank for the second straight year, accelerating the government’s sense of crisis over the country’s rapidly aging population and its economic future.

       China said on Wednesday that 9.02 million babies were born in 2023, down from 9.56 million in 2022 and the seventh year in a row that the number has fallen. Taken together with the number of people who died during the year — 11.1 million — China has more older people than anywhere else in the world, an amount that is rising rapidly. China’s total population was 1,409,670,000 at the end of 2023, a decline of 2 million people, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.

       The shrinking and aging population worries Beijing because it is draining China of the working-age people it needs to power the economy. The demographic crisis, which arrived sooner than nearly anyone expected, is already straining weak and underfunded health care and pension systems.

       China hastened the problem with its one-child policy, which helped to push the birthrate down over several decades. The rule also created generations of young only-child girls who were given an education and employment opportunities — a cohort that turned into empowered women who now view Beijing’s efforts as pushing them back into the home.

       China’s population continues to shrink as deaths outnumber births

       Note: In 2015, China announced that all married couples would be allowed to have two children. In 2021, China said it would allow couples to have three children.

       Source: National Bureau of Statistics

       By The New York Times

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       Alexandra Stevenson is the Shanghai bureau chief for The Times, reporting on China’s economy and society. More about Alexandra Stevenson

       Zixu Wang covers news in China for The Times. He studied journalism in Hong Kong and international human rights law in the United States. He is currently based in Hong Kong. More about Zixu Wang

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