Holiday Ayo - China's population will fall for two consecutive years in 2023. This decline in China's population is in line with a record low birth rate and a wave of deaths due to Covid-19.

In 2023, the Bamboo Curtain country will record the lowest birth rate in history. Reporting from the South Morning China Post (SCMP), this report data raises concerns regarding China's long-term growth prospects as the second largest economy in the world. 

The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) noted that the overall population in China will fall by 2.08 million people in 2023, namely to 1.4097 billion. 

In 2022, the population in China will be 1.4118 billion people. It was recorded that more than 9 million babies were born in 2023. 

This is the lowest birth rate since records began in 1949. Meanwhile, around 11 million people died and pushed the death rate to the highest level in five decades. 

In detail, this decline in the number of newborns is the lowest birth rate in the last seven decades with 6.39 births for every 1,000 people, compared to 6.77 births in 2022. 

Meanwhile, 11.1 million people will die in 2023, an increase of 690,000 compared to 2022. As a result, the national death rate is 7.87 per 1,000 people. 

China's official population data includes 31 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities, as well as members of the military, but does not include foreigners. 

According to a report by the Development Research Center of the State Council, China's one-child policy from 1980 to 2015 was one of the factors behind China's birth rate falling faster than in other countries in the world. 

It only took 20 years for China to reduce its fertility rate from 5.5 to 2.1, whereas other countries in East Asia took an average of 30 years. 

A fertility rate of 2.1 (the average number one woman is expected to give birth to during one lifetime) is known as the replacement rate and is generally considered the "magic number" to ensure population stability. 

For further comparison, it took the world 58 years to see the average fertility rate fall from 5 to the current 2.3. 

This population decline was announced when China's economy officially reached a gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate of 5.2 percent in 2023. 

However, the Bamboo Curtain country still faces various threats to sustainable development, including the property market crisis, weak investor confidence, and low external demand. 

Having previously benefited greatly from the demographic dividend, China will face long-term challenges, such as fewer working age workers, weak purchasing power, and a strained social security system amid its demographic shift.

However, according to a research note from Huafu Securities published in December 2023, China is in a position to overcome a number of demographic problems thanks to the rapid development of robotics.

“Replacing humans with robots shows its economic benefits amid labor shortages and rising labor costs," the note reported, Wednesday (17/1). 

In 2022, China was ranked fifth in the world after South Korea, Singapore, Germany and Japan in terms of robot density in the manufacturing sector, following increased efforts to increase industrial automation from Beijing. 

“Massive investments in automation [resulted in] high robot density, namely 392 robots per 10 thousand employees, despite having a large workforce of around 38 million people in the manufacturing industry," wrote the IFR report of January 10, 2023.