数据

How big a problem is the low birth rate?

According to China's National Statistics Bureau, there were 17.86m births in 2016, and the Chinese population grew by 1.31 million, with a rate of 12.95 births per 1,000 people, the fastest since 2001.

But in 2017, which should have seen the full effect of the two-child policy, there were 17,230,000 births, a decrease of 630,000 compared with 2016; the birth rate stood at 12.43 per 1,000, down 0.52% from 2016.

This is below even the most pessimistic forecast before the new policy was introduced.

Predictions for the future look even bleaker:

• The birth rate will continue to decline from 2018 onwards
• In the next 10 years, the number of Chinese women aged 23-30 will decrease by 40%, a huge drop in this child-bearing age group
• In 10 years' time, there will only be about 8 million births per year