How Chinas population decline could alter the global economy

Geoff Bennett:

The world's most populous country has hit an historic turning point.

Today, China announced its first population decline in six decades. China's National Bureau of Statistics said the country had 850,000 fewer people at the end of last year than in 2021, bringing its total population to 1.4 billion. China's birth rate also hit a record low last year.

Mei Fong joins us now, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and journalist with more than a decade of reporting experience in Asia. Her book "One Child" explores the implications of China's former one child policy.

Mei, it's great to have you here.

And this marks a new milestone in China's deepening demographic crisis. To what can this decline be attributed?

Mei Fong, Author, "One Child: The Story of China's Most Radical Experiment": Well, Geoff, I mean, China's not unusual in having seen a population decline. Most modern nations where women are educated and have smaller families do see that.

What's unusual about China is that this transition has occurred at a much-accelerated speed. What takes most developed nations maybe 50 years to arrive at this point, China has arrived in, in one generation. And that's because of the one child policy.

And what this means is, it's very unique, in that not only does it have fewer people. It also has a very bad mix of fewer people, in that a large portion of the population is very male. And that's because of the one child policy. So the challenges for China going ahead is that it will be hard for it to overcome this population decline because of these factors.

The fact that it's very wholly male, a hugely elderly population will make it much, much harder.

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