Is China ignoring its demographic problems?

China; the young and the old 

Chinese President Xi Jinping told the Communist Party Congress on the opening day that his government “will establish a policy system to boost birth rates and pursue a proactive national strategy in response to population aging.” But the brief reference amidst a plethora of issues facing China indicated that these troubling issues are nowhere near the top of his list of priorities.
The snail’s pace of China’s population growth and a fast ageing population could hurt the country’s economy, which has been trying to oust the US from the top slot.  

China’s population growth rate has now fallen to its lowest level in six decades. And the social and economic conditions in present-day China are such that the decline in birth and fertility rates is not likely to be arrested in the foreseeable future. Therefore, corrective steps will have to be multi-pronged embracing social, cultural, economic, political and administrative measures.   

According to Reuters, China’s population growth fell to a record low in 2022, dropping below 10 million from last year’s 10.6 million babies. This is already down 11.5% from 2020. The country’s birth rate (the number of live births per thousand of population per year) had fallen for five years in a row. China’s fertility rate (the total number of births in a year per 1,000 women of reproductive age in a population) was 1.16 in 2021, below the OECD standard of 2.1 for a stable population. China’s fertility rate is among the lowest in the world. 

In 2021, 10.62 million babies were born in China, a rate of 7.52 per thousand people. In the same period, 10.14 million deaths were recorded, a mortality rate of 7.18 per thousand, producing a population growth rate of just 0.34 per thousand head of population. This means that the rate of population growth was the lowest since 1960.
This has been a persistent problem, triggered by the “one-child” policy pursued between 1980 and 2015. In 2016, a three-child policy was adopted. But that too did not arrest the decline. To press couples to have three children, the government had instituted tax deductions, longer maternity leave, enhanced medical insurance, housing subsidies, extra money for a third child, and also a crackdown on expensive private tutoring. 

Education costs are high in China, especially for families which survive on low wages. And to earn these low wages they have to work long hours. The pandemic and the subsequent “Zero COVID” mass shutdowns worsened employment conditions. As in the West, many Chinese women are also prioritizing their careers over raising children. They either marry late or prefer to remain unmarried. 

Ravages of Top-Down Approach 

In a 2021 report, the New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) blamed China’s top-down authoritarian and patriarchal approach to the issue of childbirth. Women have been denied the right to decide on how many children they should have. It was the ‘one-child’ policy first, then the ‘two-child’ policy, followed by the ‘three-child’ policy. 
The rights watchdog also pointed out that “while Chinese women are more educated than ever, workplace gender discrimination keeps holding them back from achieving their full potential. In China, differences in mandated parental leave – mothers can get up to six months of maternity leave, while paternity leave is at most 30 days – have encouraged discriminatory practices by employers and reinforced harmful gender norms.” 

HRW alleges that since the lifting of the one-child policy in 2016, numerous women have reported being asked about their childbearing status during job interviews, being forced to sign contracts pledging not to get pregnant or being demoted or fired for being pregnant. Chinese law does ban such discriminatory practices, but it provides few effective enforcement mechanisms, HRW points out.  
The government is also stepping up efforts to reduce abortions, HRW says. 

China is trying to look after senior citizens, according to WHO. “China has been exploring innovative approaches to improving access to integrated care, including the establishment of an internet-based medical information platform. Continued investment in these innovations and creating an integrated, community-based social and health care system, along with chronic disease control and prevention, strengthened health services and a larger workforce, are essential to help China face the challenges ahead.” 

The economic downturn has triggered youth unemployment. According to VOA, in 1999, fewer than one million people graduated from colleges in China. But now a record-breaking 10.7 million new college graduates have joined the Chinese job market. And many of them face a tough time finding jobs. Youth unemployment in China reached 19.9% in July, VOA says quoting the latest data released by China’s National Bureau of Statistics.