China’s birthrate falls to lowest level despite push for more babies
Efforts by policymakers to bolster the population after decades of strict family planning seem to be failing
China’s birthrate in 2019 fell to the lowest level since the country’s founding, according to new government data, a sign that efforts to head off a demographic crisis have so far failed.
There were 14.6 million births in China last year, a drop of about 500,000 from the year before and the third year in a row that the number of births fallen, according to a report from the National Bureau of Statistics published on Friday. It was the lowest number in seven decades, with the exception of 1961, when the country was suffering from famine.