Data indicate pessimism over birth rate unfounded: China Daily editorial

There has been growing worry in recent years that China's population may have started to decrease, leading to a rapidly aging society. However, figures released by the National Bureau of Statistics on Monday suggest that is a pessimistic view, as there were 15.23 million new births last year, meaning the population grew by 3.81 percent to 1.395 billion.

And among the new births many are a second child, which indicates that the change to the country's family planning policy in 2016 to allow all couples to have a second child has proved effective in encouraging more births.

Also that the workforce — those aged 16 to 59 — stands at around 900 million, or nearly 65 percent of China's total population, suggests there are still years to come before the country ceases to reap its demographic dividend, which has often been described as one of the major factors behind China's miraculous economic growth over the past four decades and was one of the reasons for the prescient change in policy.

This, in addition to higher quality workers, as more than 8 million college graduates enter the job market each year, all bodes well for the country's industrial upgrading and economic growth in the long run.

But the latest figures do reveal some cause for concern. That the number of new births last year was much lower than the 17.23 million in 2017 and 17.86 million in 2016 suggests a declining curve in new births that will be hard to reverse.

This means more measures other than the all-couples two-child policy are needed to encourage young couples to give birth to a second child, whose willingness to do so is severely dampened by the costs involved in raising children. The measures should include more child care and early child development services, so as to relieve the burden on parents, as well as strengthened protection of women's employment rights.

The fast aging population now poses a big challenge to China, as the number of people aged 60 years or above accounts for 17.9 percent of the total population, compared with 12 percent only 10 years ago. The proportion is expected to rise to 40 percent by 2050.

To turn the problem into opportunities, the government must heed the alarm bell and make sure it is well prepared with new strategies such as building a well-developed social security system, improved welfare institutions and healthcare centers.