Is China's birth population about to rebound?

National Strategy

2024-07-02 14:20Creators in the field of finance and economics

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01 Recently, it was reported that the number of births in the mainland in 2024 may usher in a small spring, but experts said that this does not mean a comprehensive reversal of the population situation.

02 In fact, the number of marriages has rebounded in stages this year, but the compensatory effect of the mask factor on marriage and childbirth will not last long.

03 The top five provinces in the country in terms of birth population are Guangdong, Henan, Shandong, Sichuan and Guizhou, of which Guangdong is the only province with more than one million.

04Due to the limited population base, although the fertility rate of the western provinces is relatively high, it is difficult to hedge the impact of negative population growth in the eastern coastal areas.

05 On the other hand, the war for people in various places is becoming more and more intense, and retaining people has become the key, and only those who are retained belong to themselves.

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Text: Kaifeng

Population, the future.

Recently, a news that "the number of births in the mainland in 2024 may welcome a small spring" has made the population issue a hot topic again.

You must know that since 2016, the number of births in the country has declined year after year, from a high of 18.83 million all the way down to 9.02 million.

The birth situation has been declining for 7 consecutive years, why is there a "slight rebound" this year?

In fact, as early as the beginning of the year, we predicted that there was a high probability of a "repair" trend in the number of births this year.

After several years of the impact of the mask factor, this year is the year of compensatory recovery of childbirth, and it is expected to undertake some of the pent-up demand for marriage and childbirth in previous years.

Is China's birth population about to rebound?

In fact, the number of marriages has rebounded in stages last year.

The number of marriages has rebounded, and the number of births is likely to rise.

According to the data, the number of marriage registrations nationwide in 2023 will be 7.68 million couples, an increase of 845,000 couples, the first rebound in nearly a decade.

However, as with revenge consumption, the compensatory effect of the mask factor on marriage and childbirth may not last too long, and everything will eventually return to the constraints of fundamentals.

Time has proven this. Since the beginning of this year, the number of marriages nationwide has returned to a downward trajectory again, and the number of marriage registrations in the first quarter of 2024 has decreased by 178,000 year-on-year.

However, there is another special factor that is conducive to fertility in 2024: the Year of the Dragon.

The dragon has a very special symbolic meaning in China, since ancient times, the Chinese people have regarded themselves as "the descendants of the dragon", and the parents have even hoped that "their son will become a dragon".

Influenced by Confucian culture, the Year of the Dragon is generally a fertility year.

The Year of the Dragon effect is not only in the mainland, but also in Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, as well as in Singapore and other places where overseas Chinese live.

The last year of the dragon was 2012. At that time, the birth rate of the mainland population reached 14.57 per thousand, and the annual birth population was 19.73 million, the highest year since the beginning of this century, and even surpassed the years when the second or even third children were fully liberalized.

However, the Year of the Dragon factor is also cyclical, and like compensatory fertility, it is only a short-term influencing factor, which will only bring fluctuations in the fertility situation for one or two years.

In the short term, the number of women of childbearing age and the number of marriages are really affected, and in the medium and long term, it depends on the willingness to marry and have children and the pressure of parenting.

Therefore, as long as these fundamental trends do not change, the phased upward trend of fertility does not mean that the demographic situation has bottomed out, let alone a comprehensive reversal of the long-term trend.

Who is the "most daring" place in the country?

More and more people are realizing that population is not a burden but a resource, both productivity and consumption power, and its impact on the whole situation can be said to affect the whole body.

Due to the differences in population patterns, fertility policies, and marriage and childbearing cultures, the fertility patterns of different provinces in the mainland can be said to be very different.

Recently, various provinces have successively released the 2023 statistical bulletin to disclose the latest permanent population and birth rate data.

From the perspective of birth population, Guangdong, Henan, Shandong, Sichuan, and Guizhou rank among the top five in the country in terms of birth population, of which Guangdong is the only province with more than one million.

Guangdong's birth population has ranked first in the country for six consecutive years, accounting for 8.9% of the country's permanent population, contributing 11% of the birth population, which is enough to be called the "most daring" province.

In contrast, Shandong, Henan, Jiangsu, and Sichuan, which are also the top five most populous provinces in the country, have a birth population of 695,000, 610,000, 410,000, and 530,000 respectively.

What is more comparable is that the birth population in Guangdong exceeds the sum of the "free shipping area" in Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai, which shows the great contribution to the national fertility market.

You must know that the total population of the "free shipping area" in Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai in the Yangtze River Delta is as high as 176 million, which is 1.4 times that of Guangdong, but the total number of births is less than 900,000, which is less than that of Guangdong Province.

From the perspective of birth rate, Tibet, Guizhou, and Ningxia rank among the top three in the country, and are also the only three provinces with more than 10‰, while Heilongjiang, Jilin, Shanghai and other places are less than 4‰, even lower than Japan and South Korea.

On the whole, the birth rate in the western region is higher than that in the eastern region, the inland region is generally higher than that in the coastal region, and the underdeveloped region is significantly higher than that in the developed region.

However, due to the limited population base, although the fertility rate of the western provinces is relatively high, it is difficult to hedge against the negative population growth in the eastern coastal areas.

Guangdong is the only exception. Guangdong is the only province from the eastern coastal region among the 10 provinces with the highest birth rate, with a birth rate of 8.12 per thousand, more than twice that of Shanghai.

The core reason why Guangdong is the most daring to give birth is the clan cultural tradition in the Chaoshan region and the continuous influx of young foreign population.

This pattern has been around for many years, and it may continue to exist for a long time to come.

The population market has peaked, and the impact is extremely far-reaching.

The population growth of a country depends on natural growth, i.e., births-deaths, on the one hand, and international migration on the other, but not every country has liberalized immigration.

On the one hand, the population growth of a place depends on natural growth, and on the other hand, mechanical growth, that is, the changes brought about by the inflow and outflow of population.

In the past, almost all provinces were able to maintain positive population growth, precisely thanks to the contribution of natural growth, but when the birth rate declined, the natural population growth in many places was negative, and the only way to rely on was "grabbing people".

In other words, the population market has peaked, and the population competition has become a "zero-sum game".

"Zero-sum" means, you increase and I decrease, you advance and I retreat, there are places that are growing, and there must be places that are decreasing.

Where has the population grown over the past year?

According to statistics, only 11 of the 31 provinces in the mainland have maintained positive growth in permanent population, including Zhejiang, Guangdong, Hainan, Shanghai, Jiangsu, Xinjiang, Guizhou, Beijing, Tianjin, Ningxia and Tibet.

The total population increase of these 11 provinces reached 1,602,500, of which Zhejiang and Guangdong accounted for 990,000.

Although both are growth, the growth paths vary from province to province, with some benefiting from natural growth, some benefiting from population inflows, and a few doing both.

Guizhou, Ningxia, Xinjiang, Tibet, and other western regions are basically contributing to natural growth, and the birth rate in these places is much higher than the national level.

Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Beijing, Shanghai and other eastern coastal provinces, mainly from the contribution of foreign population, these places are generally facing the double restriction of "declining birthrate + aging", but with strong economic and industrial strength, continue to "siphon" the labor force in the central and western regions.

Guangdong is one of the few places where the two are combined. Guangdong is not only a large fertility province, but also a large inflow of population, and the foreign population mainly comes from Guangxi, Hunan, Hubei, Guizhou, Jiangxi, Henan and other provinces.

Therefore, when the population enters a new development pattern, the war for people everywhere will only become more and more intense, as long as it is the labor force, as long as it is young people, as long as it is people, they are all in the scramble.

In this context, the vast majority of cities are lifting the settlement restrictions, and it is not uncommon for megacities to buy and rent houses.

Of course, it is important to grab people, but it is more important to keep people, and only those who can keep them really belong to themselves.

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