World

Chinese birth rate falls to lowest in 70 years

Saturday, January 18, 2020 at 8:49 AM by Tunde Ososanya

- China's birth rate has fallen to its lowest since the formation of the People's Republic of China on October 1, 1949

- The disclosure was made by the country's National Bureau of Statistics

- According to the bureau, China's birth rate was 10.48 per thousand in 2019 - the lowest since 1949

China's National Bureau of Statistics has said that the country's birth rate has fallen to its lowest since the formation of the People's Republic of China on October 1, 1949.

The bureau said that the country's birth rate was 10.48 per thousand in 2019 - the lowest since 1949.

BBC reports that the number of babies born in China in 2019 dropped by 580,000 to 14.65 million.

Legit.ng gathers that despite the two-child policy adopted by China, its birthrate has been falling for years - posing a challenge for the world's second biggest economy.

This development is raising fears of a demographic time bomb - meaning that a smaller working-age population having to support a bigger, retired population.

Read also

Northern governor discovers 596 dead persons on state govt's payroll

Even though the abolition of the one-child policy with the introduction of the two-child policy in 2015 yielded positive results two years afterwards, the one-child policy has been blamed for a severe gender imbalance - with males still outnumbering females by more than 30 million in the 2019 figures.

According to experts, this is because the relaxing of the one-child policy did not come with other relevant changes that support family life - such as monetary support for child care and increased paternity leave.

Experts said people cannot afford one child.

PAY ATTENTION: Install our latest app for Android, read the best news on Nigeria’s #1 news app

Meanwhile, Legit.ng previously reported that the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) said that Nigeria’s current population had hit a new high of 201 million.

This is contained in the 2019 state of the world population report which identified that Nigeria’s growth rate had been at an average of 2.6 per cent from 2010 to 2019.