Chinas population declined last year for the first time since 1961.
Chinas population declined last year for the first time since 1961.
It is a historic shift that is expected to mark the beginning of a long period of decline in the number of its citizens, and for India to become the largest country in the world in terms of population in 2023.
Chinas National Bureau of Statistics said the country had 1.41175 billion people at the end of 2022, compared with 1.41260 billion a year earlier.
The birth rate last year was 6.77 births per thousand people, down from the birth rate of 7.52 births in 2021, which is the lowest birth rate ever.
China also recorded the highest death rate since 1974, with 7.37 deaths per thousand people, compared to an average of 7.18 deaths in 2021.
Much of the population decline is due to the one-child policy imposed by China between 1980 and 2015, as well as the prohibitive costs of education that have deterred many Chinese from having more than one child or even one child at all.
