China’s population declines for second straight year

China’s population decline accelerated last year, worsening a demographic gloom that has taken on increasing urgency for Beijing, Report informs, citing The Wall Street Journal.

China ended 2023 with 1.410 billion people, the National Bureau of Statistics said Wednesday, down from 1.412 billion in 2022, when it hit a historic turning point: the first year the population shrank since starvation years in the early 1960s.

Over the past year, China's population dropped by 2.08 million, more than twice the drop in 2022. The number of newborns, which has gone into free fall over the past several years, slid to 9.02 million from 9.56 million in 2022.