China’s Population Continues To Plummet As Beijing Scrambles To Find Solutions

China’s population is continuing to shrink despite Beijing’s thorough attempts to encourage more births, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday.

The Chinese population sharply declined by 2 million people in 2023, more than double the loss of the prior year, according to official data China’s government released on Wednesday. Beijing has tried to alleviate the crisis by scrapping its one-child policy and encouraging families to have more children, but those efforts have had little effect in stalling or reversing the decline.

The population crisis is due in part to a record-low number of births, which fell from approximately 10 million in 2022 to 9 million in 2023, according to the data. Many Chinese women are refusing to have more children and are instead focusing on their own well-being, even despite Beijing’s pleas and public campaigns on the benefits of having a family, according to The Wall Street Journal.