On March 31, The Paper, a Chinese media outlet, reported that the six major economic provinces in China, namely Guangdong, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Shandong, Henan, and Sichuan, which are also major population provinces, experienced a decrease in the number of births last year. In fact, Shandong and Henan even reported negative population growth.
China’s National Bureau of Statistics reported in January that there were 9.56 million new births last year, which is 1.06 million fewer than in 2021. This marks the first negative growth in 61 years.
The six large provinces saw varying degrees of decreasing birth rates, with Guangdong, the most economically developed and most populous province, experiencing the largest decrease of 131,100 births.
These six provinces collectively have a population of about 562 million, accounting for nearly 40% of China’s total population. While Guangdong and Zhejiang registered a slight positive population growth rate of only 0.04 per thousand, the remaining four provinces showed negative population growth.
Source: The Paper, March 31, 2023
https://www.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_22527853