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China's population declined in 2024 for the third year in a row

China has already been surpassed by India as the world's most populous country. Its decline is due to the stabilization and maturity of its economy and weak immigration.

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Chinese authorities announced Friday that the population declined in 2024 for the third year in a row, continuing a reversal after six decades of population explosion.

Overtaken by India as the world's most populous nation, China now faces an aging population problem, with one-third of its people expected to be over 60 within a decade.

According to the National Bureau of Statistics, China's population at the endof 2024 was 1.408 billion, down from 1.410 billion a year earlier.

Communist authorities in 2016 ended the strict one-child policy imposed in the 1980s to avoid an overpopulation problem and since 2021 allow families to have up to three children.

But these measures did not reverse the demographic decline of a country that, for decades, has based part of its economic growth on its huge labor force.

Many blame the low birth rate on the increasing cost of living and the growing number of women pursuing higher education and entering the labor market.

The Economist Intelligence Unit research group forecasts that nearly a third of China's population will be over 60 by 2035.

In September, the authorities announced that they would gradually raise from January 1 the legal retirement age, one of the lowest in the world and unchanged for decades.

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