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China says its population fell by more than 2 million,to 1.41 billion in 2023,as births continued to drop.Credit:Grainne Quinlan

The fall in births could pose more challenges to the economy,which hit an official growth target last year but remains dragged down by factors including weak domestic demand and confidence.

The ageing population and declining birth rates “will lead to structural changes in economic growth,especially in consumption,” said Shen Meng,managing director at Beijing-based boutique investment bank Chanson&Co.

A total of 9.02 million babies were born in 2023,the lowest since the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949. The number of newborns has been declining steadily since the 1960s. An uptick in 2016 after the government relaxed its one-child policy proved short-lived,and subsequent measures to boost births did little to arrest the fall.

Other East Asian countries are also struggling to reverse a drop in birth rates.

South Korea’s total fertility rate – the number of babies expected per woman – fell to 0.72 in 2023,the world’s lowest,and could plunge further to 0.65 next year. The government introduced measures to encourage more births,such as tripling monthly allowances and reducing mortgage interest rates for parents.

North Korea’s Kim Jong-un made a rare admission last month that the hermit country faces a population crisis as he pleaded mothers to produce more children. In Japan,about 42 per cent of adult women may end up never having a baby – the country posted the fewest births since records began in 1899.

For China,a rapidly ageing society would bring further headwinds to its flagging economy,in part by hurting long-term demand for housing. The government may also struggle to pay for its underfunded national pension system.

On Monday,Beijing announced a plan for a so-called “silver economy” estimated to be worth trillions of dollars,catering to older people needing services ranging from meal delivery to nursing homes and entertainment options.

One in five of the mainland’s 1.4 billion people were 60 or older at the end of 2022 – with the ratio set to exceed 30 per cent in a decade,China’s National Health Commission previously said.

Bloomberg