China’s Birth Rate Plummets to Record Low, Deepening Crisis

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Jianan Yu/ReutersChina’s birth rate plunged to a record low in 2023, accelerating an overall population decline causing alarm among local policymakers desperately trying to reverse the trend. The country’s population shrank for a second consecutive year, dropping 0.15 percent—or 2.08 million people—and leaving the overall population at 1.409 billion last year. The decline was dramatically larger than the 850,000 drop in 2022, which was itself the first population shrinkage recorded in China sinc