China’s population crisis worsens

China’s birth rate dropped to a record low in 2021 despite government efforts to encourage families to have more children
  

Number of births (millions)	0.0 Fertility (births per woman)

1950
20.2

1959-61
Famine kills 15-30 million people during Mao’s Great Leap Forward

1961 
12.0

1963
29.8

1970
27.5

1970-76
Mao Zedong’s “Late, Long and Few” birth control campaign – two children for urban families, three for rural – cuts population by half 

1976
18.6

1979
17.3

1979
Leader Deng Xiaoping introduces one-child policy to curb rapidly growing population

1987
25.3

1990s
Fertility drops below replacement level of 2.1 births per woman

1995
20.6

2016: 17.9

2016
President Xi Jinping scraps one-child policy, replacing it with two-child limit

2020: Couples allowed up to three children after births drop to lowest level since 1961 

2020
12.0

2021: 10.6 million babies born, down from 12 million in 2020


30
25
20
15
10 
50    
	5.5 6.2 6.3 4.8 3.0 2.5 2.8 1.8 1.5 1.5 1.5 1.5 1.3
1950 	1960 	1970 	1980 	1990 	2000 	2010 	2020
 

Sources: Bloomberg, UN, National Geographic 
Pictures: Getty Images 
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