Some grassroots hospitals in China have reportedly seen declines in the number of registered pregnant women so far this year, in some cases by one-third compared with previous years, local media reported. Chinese demographers predict the country will record 8.5 million to 9 million newborns this year.
Doctors from the department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology (O&G) in a hospital in Henan Province told the China Philanthropist magazine that they’ve noticed a precipitous drop in registered pregnant women this year, compared with previous years. “No long lines at the O&G department anymore.”
Vying for the shrinking number of clients, hospitals rolled out policies to attract pregnant women, including 50 percent discounts on hospital beds, and free pick-up and delivery services for antenatal care.
Doctors from Southwest China’s Guizhou and Northeast China’s Heilongjiang provinces have complained about the declining number of births at their institutes, according to Hongxing News, a news portal based in Chengdu.
The Guizhou doctor said that the number of women giving birth in her hospital dropped 30 percent this year compared with the same period last year. The Heilongjiang medical worker said they used to help eight or 10 women deliver per day, but now there’s only one every several days.
A hospital in Cangnan County in Zhejiang Province on May 7 suspended its midwife services due to a decline in requests. Its obstetric clinic remains open.
China’s population fell by 850,000 in 2022 from the previous year, the National Statistics Bureau (NBS) said in February. The number of births was 9.56 million last year, or 6.77 per 1,000 people, the lowest since the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, data from the bureau showed.
Comments online claim that the number of Chinese newborns this year won’t surpass 8 million. However, He Yafu, an independent demographer, said that’s overly pessimistic.
“Although births in 2023 are expected to further decline from 2022, the number will be between 8.5 million and 9 million,” according to He.
Central and local governments are sparing no effort to encourage childbirth, such as rolling out subsidies for families with more than one child.
Liang Jianzhang, an economics professor at Peking University, wrote in a new book that the subsidy for encouraging birth should account for at least 2-5 percent of GDP. That would mean giving a family with two children 1,000 yuan ($141) per month, and 2,000 yuan per month for those with three children, along with tax cuts and preferential policies for house purchasing.
In recent days, the People’s Daily and the Xinhua News Agency have published articles encouraging society to recognize the “new realities” of China’s population development.
An article published by Xinhua on Monday called for comprehensive and appropriate views of China’s population. The article asked people to consider both quantity and quality in terms of the population, and not simply regard increases or decreases, or changing demographic structures, as advantages or disadvantages.
Cai Fang, former deputy director of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said during a recent seminar that there’s no need to be pessimistic about the declining birth rate. It is time for China to create conditions to further improve the quality of the population to make up for the decrease, and to replace factor inputs with productivity.
He said that the declining population, along with COVID-19, had an impact on consumption. He suggested fair and effective distribution of labor, elevating the income of those with low salaries, and expanding equal access to basic public goods.
Wang Pingping, a senior NBS official, said in January that although the population declined in 2022, China still has 1.4 billion people, and the population dividend and vast market advantage still exist. The country still has huge labor resources, as the working-age population amounts to 900 million.
The official said that the population dividend has just started to show as the education level of Chinese people is improving. In 2022, the average education span for people aged 16-59 reached 10.93 years, an increase of 0.11 years from 2021.
Cai suggested that the government should pay more attention to the support of the aging group, as the working-age population is shrinking while that of the retired group is expanding.