Wang Feng
In 2022, China experienced its first net population loss in more than six decades. Unlike the one it suffered during the Great Leap Forward famine when a starvation-induced population loss was quickly resolved by an ensuing baby boom, the COVID-driven population deficit has not seen such a rebound. To the contrary, China has embarked on a road of demographic no-return.
China’s current demographic downturn is deep and long-lasting. It is driven by forces that are fundamentally different from those during the Great Leap Forward famine, which spanned from 1959-1961. Instead of the sharp mortality spike that took as many as 30 million lives, population health in China has been increasing. Life expectancy at birth was 68 in 1990, and increased 10 years in three decades to reach 78 by 2020. At the same time, fertility has remained below what demographers call the “replacement level” of around two children per woman for more than three decades, even after China scrapped its long-held one-child policy. China has joined its East Asian neighbors as a country with ultra-low fertility—with no sign of a rebound.
No comments:
Post a Comment