China records fall in birth rate for 2nd straight year

A nurse takes care of a newborn baby at Gansu Provincial Maternity and Childcare Hospital in Lanzhou. Xinhua/China Daily

BEIJING — A total of 15.23 million babies were born last year on the Chinese mainland, a drop by about 2 million from that of 2017, according to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics on Monday.

It marks the second year consecutive decrease since the country relaxed its family planning policy and fully implemented the universal second-child policy.

The birth rate also dropped from 1,243 to 1,094 per 100,000 population from 2017 to 2018, NBS figures show.

Before the population data was released on Monday, experts in China predicted the number of birth for last year would continue to fall due to causes such as rapid decline in the number of women at childbearing age and people’s lack of willingness to have more babies.

China adopted the universal second-child policy at the beginning of 2016, allowing all couples to have two children, to counter problems such as ageing and dwindling workforce. After the number of birth reached 17.86 million that year, the highest since 2000, the number of birth fell to 17.23 million in 2017.

Latest NBS figures also show that the total population on the Chinese mainland reached 1.395 billion, an increase of 5.3 million year-on-year.

The number of workforce, or those between 16 and 59 years old, stood at around 897 million, accounting for 64.3 percent of the total population. The number of people at 60 years old or above exceeded 249 million, accounting for 17.9 percent of the total population, according to the bureau.