Home Tags Posts tagged with "china population"

china population

0

According to a recent report, part of the Global Burden of Diseases analysis and published in the Lancet, there has been a remarkable global decline in the number of children women are having.

Their researchers found that fertility rate falls meant nearly half of countries were now facing a “baby bust” – meaning there are insufficient children to maintain their population size.

They said the findings were a “huge surprise” and there would be profound consequences for societies with “more grandparents than grandchildren”.

The study followed trends in every country from 1950 to 2017.

According to the report, in 1950, women were having an average of 4.7 children in their lifetime. The fertility rate all but halved to 2.4 children per woman by 2017.

However, that masks huge variation between nations.

Image source Pixabay

Women’s fertility at 39 is similar to that at 27, claims Prof. Jean Twenge

Women’s fertility predicted by their mothers’ age at menopause

Breakthrough discovery: stem cells could give women long-life fertility

The fertility rate in Niger, West Africa, is 7.1, but in the Mediterranean island of Cyprus women are having one child, on average.

Whenever a country’s average fertility rate drops below approximately 2.1 then populations will eventually start to shrink (this “baby bust” figure is significantly higher in countries which have high rates of death in childhood).

At the start of the study, in 1950, there were zero nations in this position.

More economically developed countries including the US, most of Europe, South Korea and Australia have lower fertility rates.

It does not mean the number of people living in these countries is falling, at least not yet as the size of a population is a mix of the fertility rate, death rate and migration.

It can also take a generation for changes in fertility rate to take hold.

Half the world’s nations are still producing enough children to grow, but as more countries advance economically, more will have lower fertility rates.

The fall in fertility rate is not down to sperm counts or any of the things that normally come to mind when thinking of fertility.

Instead it is being put down to three key factors: fewer deaths in childhood meaning women have fewer babies; greater access to contraception and more women in education and work.

Without migration, countries will face ageing and shrinking populations.

The report says affected countries will need to consider increasing immigration, which can create its own problems, or introducing policies to encourage women to have more children, which often fail.

China has seen huge population growth since 1950, going from around half a billion inhabitants to 1.4 billion.

However, China too is facing the challenge of fertility rates, which stood at only 1.5 in 2017, and has recently moved away from its famous one child policy.

The reason developed countries need a fertility rate of 2.1 is because not all children survive to adulthood and babies are ever so slightly more likely to be male than female.

However, in China, the report shows for every 100 girls born there were 117 boys which “imply very substantial gender-selective abortion and even the possibility of female infanticide”.

That means even more children need to be born to have a stable population.

After more than three decades, China has ended its one-child policy, the state-run Xinhua news agency reports.

The Chinese couples will now be allowed to have two children, it said, citing a statement from the Communist Party.

The controversial policy was introduced nationally in 1979, to slow the population growth rate.

It is estimated to have prevented about 400 million births. However, concerns at China’s ageing population led to pressure for change.

Couples who violated the one-child policy faced a variety of punishments, from fines and the loss of employment to forced abortions.

Over time, the policy has been relaxed in some provinces, as demographers and sociologists raised concerns about rising social costs and falling worker numbers.

The Communist Party began formally relaxing national rules two years ago, allowing couples in which at least one of the pair is an only child to have a second child.China ends one child policy

In rural areas, families were allowed to have two children if the first was a girl.

Other exceptions included ethnic minorities and – since 2013 – couples where at least one was a single child.

Campaigners say the policy led to forced abortions, female infanticide, and the under-reporting of female births.

The decision to allow families to have two children was designed “to improve the balanced development of population” and to deal with an aging population, according to the statement from the Community Party’s Central Committee carried by the official Xinhua News Agency on October 29.

Currently about 30% of China’s population is over the age of 50.

Correspondents say that despite the relaxation of the rules, many couples may opt to only have one child, as one-child families have become the social norm.

The announcement comes on the final day of a summit of the Chinese Communist Party’s policy-making Central Committee, known as the fifth plenum.

The Chinese Communist Party is also set to announce growth targets and its next five year plan.