Trending in China: The Upside to a Potential Population Decline

What’s trending?

#Beijing-birthrate-falls-to-10-year-low# is trending on China’s biggest social media site Weibo this week, as selected census results were released with some reluctance Thursday. The Beijing Municipal Health Commission reported that 100,368 new Beijing residents were born in the capital last year, down 24% from the 2019 total. The hashtag has been viewed 110,000 times, and commented on by 11,000 online blog readers.

What’s the story?

China conducts a national population census every 10 years, and the results are closely watched around the world. After all, any change in China’s demographic data — a huge market of approximately 1.4 billion people — can have a significant impact on global economics.

In eagerly awaited news Thursday, the National Bureau of Statistics announced that “In 2020, our nation’s population continued to maintain growth,” without elaborating, amid wide expectations for the country to report a decline in its population in the last decade.

Even after the “two-child policy” was instituted nationally in 2016, the number of births in China has continued to fall, by 610,000 in 2017 to 17.25 million, by 2 million in 2018 to 15.23 million, and by 580,000 in 2019 to 14.65 million, according to a Caixin blog posted on April 30.

Last year, many cities saw the number of new births shrink. In the eastern city of Taizhou, the figure fell by 32% in 2020. That year, it fell by 23% in Hefei, East China’s Anhui province and 9% in Guangzhou, the capital of South China’s Guangdong province.

“Ever since Beijing and Shanghai formulated major strategies for decremental development, Guangzhou and Shenzhen have largely taken their place,” Huang Hancheng, Guangzhou-based analyst with ZG Trend, wrote for Caixin.

As reported by Nikkei Asia on April 24, 8.13 million couples registered for marriage in 2020, down 12% from 2019 and marking the seventh straight year of decline, according to data from China’s Ministry of Civil Affairs. The figure also represents a 40% fall from the 2013 peak.

Babies may not be registered to unwed parents in China.

What are people saying online?

One blogger on Weibo took the news as an opportunity to complain about China’s youth. “Some young people would rather waste a lot of time and money on keeping pets, but refuse to marry or have children. This has caused a serious population problem, which is a serious social problem,” the blogger wrote.

Another commenter took an opposing view: “Why do you want so many people; it’s crowded everywhere.”

Many people focused on the capital city element of the story. “So if there’s a shortage of people in Beijing now, can I live there?”

Another pointed to changing national objectives with, “When I was in school, the book said, ‘late marriage and late childbirth’ and now it’s saying ‘get married early and have a second child.’”

One Weibo user joked that “this result is still the highest in the new decade, so what’s the problem!”

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