China can boost births by improving living standards, demographer says
- Cai Fang, with the CASS, also points to an ‘urgent need’ to make basic public services widely available
- He says extremely low fertility rate would improve with a better score on the UNDP’s Human Development Index
China has “great potential” for a higher fertility rate if the standard of living and access to public services are improved, according to a leading demographer
In an article in The Beijing News on Wednesday, Cai Fang, a demographic economist with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, also said there was an “urgent need” to improve basic public services and make them available to everyone to address the extremely low fertility rate.
According to the latest official data, there were just over seven babies born per 100 people in mainland China in 2021 – a record low. The fertility rate, or the number of children per woman, is now 1.3. That is below the level in Japan, a rapidly ageing population like China, and below the replacement rate of 2.1.