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China's population
EconomyChina Economy

China population: which 13 provinces officially shrank in 2021?

  • China’s population grew by just 480,000 to 1.4126 billion last year, and demographers say a national decline appears inevitable as birth rate falls and people live longer
  • Demographic crisis is threatening to hurt the supply and demand sides of China’s economy, prompting a scramble among authorities to promote births

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02:07

Population decline in China raises concerns of economic implications

Population decline in China raises concerns of economic implications
Luna Sunin Beijing

China has shone a bit more light on its demographic crisis, with newly released figures showing that more than a third of its provinces saw their populations shrink last year.

The data, outlined in the China Statistical Yearbook 2022, renews discourse over a possible population decline in the world’s most populous nation this year, with concerns of severe economic implications.

Among China’s 31 provincial-level jurisdictions, 13 reported more deaths than births last year.

Those 13 comprised the wealthy regions of Shanghai, Jiangsu and Tianjin; the central provinces of Sichuan, Chongqing, Hunan and Hubei; Hebei, Shanxi and the Inner Mongolia autonomous region in the north and northwest; and the northeastern rust-belt provinces of Liaoning, Jilin, and Heilongjiang.

And for at least six of the jurisdictions, the population declines were their first in modern history. This helped drive China’s national birth rate down to 7.52 per 1,000 people in 2021 – the lowest rate since record-keeping began in 1949.

In Heilongjiang province, there were 3.59 births per 1,000 people last year – the fewest in any jurisdiction – with 8.7 deaths per 1,000 people, one of the highest mortality rates.

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