China’s population may soon begin to decline

China could enter a period of negative population growth in the next few years amid deepening demographic problems, and the birth rate will continue to decline over the next century.

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According to official statistics, the number of newborns in some provinces of China in 2021 was the lowest in several decades, the newspaper notes. Thus, in the province of Hunan, located in the center of the country, for the first time in 60 years, less than 500 thousand children were born, in Henan province – for the first time since 1978, less than 800 thousand, and in the eastern province of Jiangxi, for the first time since the 1950s, the number of newborns fell below 400. thousand. At the same time, more than a million children were born in only one province of Guangdong.

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Yang Wenzhuang, head of the Department of Demography and Family Affairs of the People’s Republic of China Health Commission, said: “The population growth rate has slowed down to a large extent, during the current five-year period (2021-2025), growth may turn negative.“