This adds to Eamonn’s story from earlier here: Wall Street Journal says “China is headed toward a demographic collapse”
The City Data post revealed a plummeting birth rate in China, with roughly only 7.88 million babies born in 2023. Couple that with the roughly 11 million deaths recorded last year, it tallies to a population decline of 3.12 million. And that indicates a growing demographic problem, which isn’t a good signal of confidence to the social and economic outlook for China.
That post has since been deleted and “official figures” will only be confirmed no earlier than 17 January. We’ll see if that syncs with what the leaked numbers are saying.
As much as China is looking to keep it hush on the matter, their own academia had also forecasted such a scenario already in August last year as seen here. So, this is not to say that the number is a major surprise.
However, it is a big blow to morale and Xi Jinping’s depicted image in leading China in recent years. It is a further indictment that the working class continues to prefer not having kids in this current generation. From high property prices to worsening quality of life, I’ll leave you to guess why that is the case although we all already know the answers to that.