[ti:China's Population Declines Again in 2023]
[by:www.21voa.com]
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[00:00.04]China announced recently
[00:02.88]that the country's mainland population
[00:06.20]fell by 2 million people in 2023.
[00:10.36]This drop is the second yearly decrease in population,
[00:15.60]adding to concerns about
[00:17.48]the country's future economic growth.
[00:21.20]The National Bureau of Statistics
[00:23.80]said the total number of people in China
[00:27.40]dropped by 2.08 million, or 0.15 percent,
[00:34.04]to 1.409 billion in 2023.
[00:40.96]China does a full population count,
[00:43.80]or census, every 10 years.
[00:47.00]The number of deaths rose by 690,000 to 11.1 million,
[00:54.24]more than twice the increase recorded in 2022.
[00:59.12]Population experts said the aging of the population
[01:04.32]and COVID-19 outbreaks account for most of the rise.
[01:09.52]But the data also suggested important information
[01:14.28]about the number of births,
[01:16.48]which fell by 540,000, or 5.6 percent.
[01:22.72]The drop was smaller than
[01:24.44]the decreases of the past three years.
[01:28.00]Still, the decreasing birth rate
[01:30.80]suggests that the fertility rate
[01:33.88]is a long-term economic
[01:35.76]and societal problem for China.
[01:38.92]The lower fertility rate,
[01:41.24]together with people living longer
[01:43.72]because of better health care,
[01:46.00]means China is slowly growing older.
[01:49.44]Demographer Zuo Xuejin,
[01:52.32]formerly of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences,
[01:57.00]estimated that the proportion of the population
[02:00.96]that is 65 or older
[02:03.52]could double to more than 30 percent by 2050.
[02:09.04]These population changes
[02:10.92]could slow economic growth over time.
[02:15.12]Other countries in the region
[02:17.28]also face long-term population problems.
[02:21.04]Japan's birth rate was 6.3 per 1,000 people in 2022,
[02:27.96]while South Korea's rate was 4.9.
[02:32.24]"As we have observed again and again
[02:35.04]from other low fertility countries,
[02:37.68]fertility decline is often very difficult to reverse,"
[02:42.32]University of Michigan demographer Zhou Yun said.
[02:47.72]I'm John Russell.
[02:49.36]更多听力请访问21VOA.COM