Birth rate in country hits record low in 2021

BEIJING • The birth rate in China fell to a record low last year, extending a downward trend despite a landmark decision to allow couples to have up to three children and measures to help with raising them.

There were 7.52 births for every 1,000 people last year, down from the 8.52 in 2020.

Figures from the National Bureau of Statistics yesterday also showed that 10.62 million babies were born in the world's most populous country last year - an 11.5 per cent drop from the 12 million in 2020.

In 2019, the birth rate was 10.41 and there were 14.65 million births.

Changing attitudes towards raising children, a fall in the number of women at optimal child-bearing age and the Covid-19 pandemic have contributed to China's dwindling birth rate, said bureau head Ning Jizhe, who is also the vice-chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission.

He added that a policy shift announced in May last year to allow married couples to have up to three children should increase or at least sustain the current number of newborns. The government expects the overall population to hover around 1.4 billion in the coming years, he said.

China has been trying to raise its flagging fertility rate to stave off a growing reliance on the government to support its old, but it has achieved little success so far.

As at November 2020, five adults are supporting one elderly person in China, based on a report by the National Health Commission and the Office of the National Working Commission on Ageing in October last year. The report did not predict how the dependency ratio is expected to change, but stated that the elderly population is forecast to grow by 53 million in the five years to 2025.

The Chinese have so far not responded to the call to have more children, with the total fertility rate standing at 1.3 in 2020, far below the replacement rate of 2.1, according to a once-in-a-decade census in May last year.

When the three-child policy was announced last May, top policymakers also promised a suite of changes in areas such as housing, education and childcare.

More than 20 provincial governments have since rolled out goodies such as extending maternity leave, creating childcare leave and issuing subsidies to spur the number of births, according to a Xinhua report in November last year.

Last week, celebrity economist Ren Zeping had suggested in an article that the central bank should print an extra 2 trillion yuan (S$425 billion) to encourage the birth of 50 million more children in 10 years.

Dr Ren, the former chief economist of beleaguered property giant China Evergrande Group, defended his opinion on micro-blogging account Weibo after the article went viral, while other analysts weighed in to say that his suggestion was impractical, and that such a large stimulus would create problems for the economy.

Dr Ren's micro-blogging account was later banned for "violating relevant laws and regulations", according to a notice on Weibo.