Ordinarily a football World Cup would be a moment for celebration, a time to savour sport’s power to unite nations and a glorious distraction from the problems of the day. Not this time: the 2022 tournament has been mired in controversy since it was awarded to Qatar 12 years ago. The small but ultra-wealthy Middle Eastern state thought that hosting the world’s most-watched sporting event would showcase it as a major player on the global stage. But instead Qatar has come in for severe criticism on a number of fronts,…
Tag: Population
U.S. Population Growth Has Nearly Flatlined. Is That So Bad?
This article is part of the Debatable newsletter. You can sign up here to receive it on Wednesdays. “A Demographic Crisis.” “A Blinking Light Ahead.” “The Death of Hope.” Those are some of the dire headlines that have been written in recent years about the sluggish pace of U.S. population growth, which in 2021 fell to its lowest rate ever — just 0.1 percent. While the pandemic played a major role in driving last year’s decline, the country’s population growth has been slowing for much of the last decade, depressed…
Chinese government attempts to boost birth rate with new policies
The Chinese government has pledged to improve pre- and post-natal services to encourage more people to have children and reiterated its intent to “discourage” abortions as it seeks to turn around a declining birth rate. The measures announced by the country’s national health commission include a pledge to make fertility treatments more accessible. For several years authorities have flagged expanding IVF access to single women but it remains available only to married couples. A court challenge by a woman was recently struck down. The commission said it would guide local…
No longer the most populous, but still China wants to be world number one | Rana Mitter
Last week, the UN’s global population project announced a major shift in the way the world looks. Next year, India, not China, will be the world’s most populous country. Right now, China has 1.43 billion people to India’s 1.41 billion, but by mid-century there will be more than 1.6 billion Indians to around 1.3 billion Chinese. At one level, this development ought to delight Beijing, which compelled its population into a “one child” policy for some 40 years. Yet there may be a few disconsolate faces in Beijing. The idea…
China’s Widespread Lockdowns Will Bring an Economic Toll
Nearly 400 million people are estimated to be under some form of lockdown in China as officials try to stop a fast-moving Omicron outbreak that is beginning to weigh on the world’s second-largest economy. Hundreds of thousands of people have been sent to isolation facilities in China, and millions more have been told to stay in their homes. Officials in dozens of cities have shut down normal daily life across the country in a race to track and trace the coronavirus and stamp out China’s worst outbreak since the start…
China’s Divorce Rate Is Down, but So Are Marriages
HONG KONG — Faced with a soaring divorce rate, the ruling Communist Party in China introduced a rule last year to keep unhappy marriages together by forcing couples to undergo a 30-day “cooling off” period before finalizing a divorce. The rule appears to have worked, according to government statistics released this week, which show a steep drop in divorce filings in 2021. Local officials have hailed the new rule as a success in the country’s effort to grow families and curb a demographic crisis threatening China’s economy. But the party…
‘Stop nagging!’: why China’s generation Z is resisting marriage and babies
Early this month, China’s state news agency Xinhua posted a video reminding young Chinese men born in the year 2000 that they are now finally eligible to get married. “Post 00s have reached legal marriage age,” it declared. The hashtag swiftly popped up in the “top-searched list” of Weibo hot topics, but many read it as the government’s attempt to put pressure on them. “Who dares to get married these days? Don’t we need to make money?” one questioned. “Stop nagging me!” said another. Under Chinese law, men can marry…
China’s Births Hit Historic Low, a Political Problem for Beijing
China announced on Monday that its birthrate plummeted for a fifth straight year in 2021, moving the world’s most populous country closer to the potentially seismic moment when its population will begin to shrink, and hastening a demographic crisis that could undermine its economy and even its political stability. The falling birthrate, coupled with the increased life expectancy that has accompanied China’s economic transformation over the last four decades, means the number of people of working age, relative to the growing number of people too old to work, has continued…
China’s birthrate falls to 61-year low despite moves to stave off demographic crisis
China’s birthrate has fallen to its lowest level in six decades, barely outnumbering deaths in 2021 despite major government efforts to increase population growth and stave off a demographic crisis. Across China, 10.62 million babies were born in 2021, a rate of 7.52 per thousand people, the national bureau of statistics said on Monday. In the same period 10.14 million deaths were recorded, a mortality rate of 7.18 per thousand, producing a population growth rate of just 0.34 per thousand head of population. The rate of growth is the lowest…
China: editorial says Communist party members must have three children
An editorial in a Chinese state-run news website has suggested Communist party members are obliged to have three children for the good of the country, as Beijing seeks to address plummeting birthrates. The editorial, which was first published last month, went viral this week and drew sharp reaction from Chinese internet users, with millions of shares, views and comments. As the wave of reaction grew, the original article disappeared from the website. The piece, published by a state media outlet called China Reports Network, said every member of the ruling…