China’s Population Declines For Third Straight Year Amid Rising Economic Struggles

China’s population declined for a third straight year in 2024, the National Bureau of Statistics of China reported on Friday.

The total population of China stood at 1.408 billion at the end of 2024, a decline of 1.39 million from 2023, according to the press release. The country’s continuous population decline is largely due to low fertility rates, which have been steadily declining for half a century.

China introduced a nationwide one-child policy in the late 1970’s in an attempt to reduce the country’s massive population. The end of the one-child policy was announced in late 2015, and it formally ended in 2016, according to Britannica. The Chinese government allowed all families to have two children beginning in 2016, and in 2021 all married couples were allowed to have up to three children, Britannica reported.

Since China switched to a three-child policy in 2021, it has been running national campaigns to encourage a “pro-birth culture” due to its aging and declining population, CNN reported