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China's birth rate plummets to lowest figure in decades

  • [서울=아시아뉴스통신] 레악카나 기자
  • 송고시간 2021-11-25 02:40
  • 뉴스홈 > 국제
China relaxed its 'one-child policy' in 2016 allowing couples to have two children as concerns mount over an ageing workforce and economic stagnation. (File photo by=AFP/WANG Zhao)

[Asia News = Reporter Reakkana] BEIJING: China's birth rate plummeted to a record low last year, highlighting a looming demographic crisis for Beijing caused by a rapidly aging workforce, a slowing economy, and the weakest population growth in decades, AFP reported.

China relaxed its "one-child policy", one of the world's strictest family planning regulations - in 2016, allowing couples to have two children. Earlier this year that was extended to three children. But the changes have failed to result in the hoped-for baby boom, amidst cost of living rises and women increasingly making their own family planning choices. Last year, China recorded 8.52 births per 1,000 people according to the 2021 Statistical Yearbook released in the past week - the lowest figure since the yearbook data began in 1978.  It’s a marked drop from the previous year's 10.41, and the lowest figure since Communist China was founded in 1949, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.


Additionally, the yearbook showed the number of marriages registered in 2020 reached a 17-year low, with only 8.14 million couples tying the knot last year. The results of a once-in-a-decade census announced in May showed that China's population grew at its slowest rate since the 1960s. Some questions have also been raised about the reliability of China's data. Others said the divorce cooling-off period had deterred people from rushing into marriage.