General Studies- I (Population and associated issues)

Gist Of Editorials

15 May 2021

In the decade up to 2020, China’s population grew at its slowest rate since the 1950s, mirroring trends seen in neighbouring South Korea and Japan, official census data released on Tuesday showed.

• It now stands at2 crore people, with the rate of growth falling for the fourth consecutive year.
• By 2025, the country is set to lose its ‘most populous’ tag to India, which in 2020 had an estimated 138 crore people, 1.5 per cent behind China.

Highlights of China’s latest census data:

According to the seventh census, released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) in Beijing:

• Last year, 2 crore babies were born in China, down from 1.465 crore in 2019 — a fall of 18 per cent in one year.
• The country’s fertility rate has dropped to 1.3, far below the replacement level of 2.1 required for a generation to have enough children to replace it.
• China’s population was 41 billion in 2020, increasing by 72 million since the last census in 2010, recording a 5.38% growth in this period.
• The average annual growth was 0.53%.
• The country’s working population — between ages 15 and 59 — is now 89.43 crore or 63.35 per cent of the total, down by 6.79 per cent from 2010.

Concerns for China:

The China’s population last declined during two years in 1960-1961, when the Great Chinese Famine — a manmade disaster resulting from the policies of then-dictator Mao Zedong.

• It caused the number of people to fall by 1 crore people in 1960 and another 3.4 crore in 1961, as per official figures.
• The slowing growth rate, is also consequence of China’s stringent family planning rules over decades – known as the “one-child policy”.
• It has evoked concerns of a rapidly ageing society and the impact on China’s labour force, and fears that China will, as some experts have said, “get old before it gets rich”.
• The impact on the labour force and healthcare is a particular concern.

Efforts for making a change:

• China loosened family planning rules and allowed couples to have two children in 2016.
• But, this has failed to mark a boom amid changing lifestyles and declining preferences, particularly in urban areas, for larger families.
• Authorities have also been urged to completely drop restrictions on the number of children allowed per family.
• The Chinese government announced this year that it would increase the retirement age by a few months every year.
• For the past four decades, the retirement age in China has been 60 for men and 55 for women, or 50 for women in blue-collar jobs.

Source: The Hindu