China's population to shrink for first time in 60 years, here's what it means for the world

According to a report, China's population grew from 1.41212 billion to just 1.41260 billion in 2021 - a record low increase of just 4,80,000.

Melbourne: China, the world's biggest nation which accounts for more than one-sixth of the world's population, is about to shrink. Yet after four extraordinary decades in which China's population has swelled from 660 million to 1.4 billion, its population is on track to turn down this year, for the first time since the great famine of 1959-1961.

According to the latest figures from China's National Bureau of Statistics, China's population grew from 1.41212 billion to just 1.41260 billion in 2021 - a record low increase of just 480,000, a mere fraction of the annual growth of eight million or so common a decade ago.

While a reluctance to have children in the face of strict anti-COVID measures might have contributed to the slowdown in births, it has been coming for years. 

China's total fertility rate (births per woman) was 2.6 in the late 1980s - well above the 2.1 needed to replace deaths. It has been between 1.6 and 1.7 since 1994 and slipped to 1.3 in 2020 and just 1.15 in 2021.

By way of comparison, in Australia and the United States, the total fertility rate is 1.6 births per woman. In ageing Japan, it is 1.3. This has happened despite China abandoning its one-child policy in 2016 and introducing a three-child policy, backed by tax and other incentives, last year.