China’s population declined at a faster pace in 2023 as births fell to a record low, accelerating a demographic shift that poses long-term challenges to a government already contending with deflation pressures and a property crisis.
The number of people in the world’s second-largest economy fell for a second year by over 2 million to 1.41 billion in 2023, according to data released by the National Statistics Bureau on Wednesday. The drop more than doubled that in 2022, when the Chinese population shrank for the first time since 1961, the final year of the Great Famine under former leader Mao ...