Economic and Social Implications of Negative Population Growth

Abstract

With the rapid development of China’s socioeconomic status, the increasing life quality, and the changing attitudes on marriage and childbearing among people of childbearing age, China has entered an era of negative population growth since 2022. Although China has introduced various policies to encourage births since 2013, the number of births has not increased as expected, but has declined rapidly. Looking back at the historical trend of population change in some developed countries, population decline is an “inevitable” process that many countries have to go through in the process of social and economic development. For China, after more than 30 years of its one-child policy, its population situation has some unique features. Although the willingness of young couples to have children is declining and the number of births is decreasing, there are significant problems such as advanced pregnancy, infertility, and childbearing after caesarean section, which in turn pose a threat to the health of mothers and children and lead to heavy medical burdens. Therefore, how to improve the treatment effectiveness and safety of infertility, the quality of maternal and child health care and the ability to treat high-risk maternal and foetal complications are major issues that China’s maternal and child health care system has to face and deal with urgently.