China with the Lowest Birth Rate since 1949

The end of "one-child policy" could not stop China's declining birth rate, the BBC reported.

The birth rate has dropped to its lowest level since the inception of the People's Republic of China 70 years ago - despite the elimination of "one-child policy".

The birth rate was 10.48 per thousand in 2019 - the lowest since 1949, the National Bureau of Statistics said.

The number of babies born in 2019 dropped by 580,000 to 14.65 million.

The country's birth rate has been declining for years and this is a challenge for the world's second largest economy.

Despite declining birth rates, China's population reached 1.4 billion in 2019, the statistics bureau said.

The death rate in 2019 was 7.14 per thousand - resulting in a "natural increase" of 3.34%.

In 1979, the Chinese government introduced a nationwide "one-child policy" - with various exceptions - to slow down population growth.

But politics has been blamed for the severe gender imbalance - men still outnumber women by more than 30 million, according to 2019 figures.

In 2015, the government abolished the "one child policy" and allowed the couples to have two children. But this reform failed to reverse the country's declining birth rate.

Experts say this is because the policy easing was not accompanied by other important changes that support families: financial support for child-rearing and increased maternity leave.

Most people can't actually afford more than one child, analysts say.

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