China accounts for more than one-sixth of the world's population, but after four decades of growing from 660 million to 1.4 billion, the population will decline this year for the first time since the great famine of 1959-1961, writes researcher Xujian Peng..

According to the latest data from the National Bureau of Statistics of China, the population of the country increased by only 480,000 people in 2021, to 1.41260 billion.. For comparison, 10 years ago, the annual growth was 8 million people..

While the reluctance to have children amid tough anti-COVID measures may have contributed to the slowdown in the birth rate, it has been observed for many years..

In the late 1980s, China's total fertility rate (the number of births per woman) was 2.6 - well above the 2.1 needed to replace deaths.. Since 1994, it has been between 1.6 and 1.7, and in 2020 it dropped to 1.3, and in 2021 to 1.15.

By comparison, Australia and the United States have a total fertility rate of 1.6 births per woman.. In aging Japan, only 1.3.

The sharp drop in fertility comes despite China ending its one-child policy in 2016 and introducing a three-child policy, backed by tax and other incentives, last year..

There are different theories about why Chinese women are still reluctant to have children despite government incentives.. One of them is that the population is accustomed to small families. Another option is related to the rising cost of living, while others believe that this may be due to an increase in the marriageable age, which delays the birth of children and reduces the desire to have them at all..

In addition, there are fewer women of childbearing age in China than one might expect.. Limited to having only one child since 1980, many couples choose a boy, raising the birth sex ratio from 106 boys to 100 girls (the ratio in most other countries of the world) to 120 and in some provinces to 130.

After 2021, researchers predict that China's population will decline by an average of 1.1% annually.. Last year, China's total population grew by its lowest level since the crisis, at just 0.34 people in every 1,000.. According to forecasts prepared by a group of specialists from the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, this year - for the first time since the famine - the population will decrease by 0.49 people per thousand. The tipping point came a decade earlier than expected.

Back in 2019, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences expected the population to peak in 2029 at 1.44 billion.. The United Nations 2019 Population Prospects report expected a peak even later, in 2031-32, at 1.46 billion people.

The Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences team predicts that after 2021, the average annual population decline will be 1.1%, bringing China's population to 587 million in 2100..

The assumptions behind this projection are that China's total fertility rate will decline from 1.15 to 1.1 between now and 2030 and remain at that level until 2100..

Rapid population decline will have a profound impact on China's economy. China's working-age population peaked in 2014 and is projected to fall to less than one third of that peak by 2100. China's elderly population (aged 65 and over) is expected to continue to grow for much of this time and will exceed the working-age population by 2080. This means that if at present 100 working-age people can support every 20 elderly, then by 2100 100 able-bodied Chinese will have to support 120 elderly Chinese..

China's 1.73% average annual decline in its working-age population sets the stage for slower economic growth unless labor productivity rises rapidly.

Rising labor costs caused by rapid labor cuts will push low-margin, labor-intensive industries out of China and into labor-surplus countries such as Vietnam, Bangladesh, and India. Already, labor costs in China are twice as high as in Vietnam..

At the same time, China will have to devote more of its manufacturing resources to providing health, medical and elderly care services to meet the needs of an increasingly elderly population..

Modeling from the Center for Policy Research at the University of Victoria in Australia suggests that without changes to China's pension system, pension benefits would increase fivefold, from 4% of GDP in 2020 to 20% of GDP in 2100..

For resource-exporting countries such as Australia, these changes are likely to require a reorientation of exports to producers outside of China.. For importers of goods, including the United States, the source of goods will gradually shift towards new and emerging centers of production.

Despite predictions that it will be a "

Study author Xujian Peng works at the Center for Policy Studies at the University of Victoria (Canada).