What China’s baby woes mean for its economic ambitions

Crystal, who wished to withhold her real name, is a 26-year-old living in Beijing. Unlike most women from previous generations in China, she is unmarried and currently faces no pressure to tie the knot.

When asked why that is, she laughs: “I think it’s because my family members are either never married or divorced.”

It appears to be a common sentiment among young urban women in China. A 2021 survey by China’s Communist Youth League of almost 3,000 people between the ages of 18 and 26, found that more than 40per cent of young women living in cities did not plan to marry - compared to less than 25per cent of men. This is in part due to rising childcare costs and the ghosts of China’s one-child policy, reports BBC.

“Having just one child or no children has become the social norm in China,” says Yi Fuxian, a senior scientist in obstetrics and gynaecology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and a prominent critic of the one-child policy.

“The economy, social environment, education and almost everything else relates back to the one-child policy,” he adds.

For Beijing, this is a worrying trend because China’s population is declining. It’s birth rate has been slowing for years but in 2022 its population fell for the first time in 60 years.

That’s bad news for the world’s second-largest economy, where the workforce is already shrinking and an ageing population is beginning to put pressure on the state’s welfare services.

China’s working age population - those between the ages of 16 and 59 - currently stands at about 875 million. They account for a little more than 60per cent of the country’s people.

But the figure is expected to fall further, by another 35 million, over the next five years, according to an official estimate by the government in 2021.

“China’s demographic structure in 2018 was similar to that of Japan’s in 1992,” Mr Yi said. “And China’s [demographic structure] in 2040 will be similar to Japan’s in 2020.”

Until last year, many economists had assumed China’s growth would surpass that of the US by the end of the decade - a move which would cap the country’s extraordinary economic ascent.

But Mr Yi says that is now looking unlikely, adding “By 2031-2035, China will be doing worse than the US on all demographic metrics, and in terms of economic growth”.

The average age in China is now 38. But as its population ages and birth rates plummet further, there are concerns that China’s workforce will eventually be unable to support those who have already retired.

The retirement age for men in China is 60 and for women, it is 55. Currently, those above 60 make up almost a fifth of the population. In Japan, which has one of the fastest ageing populations in the world, nearly a third of the people are 65 or older.