16:49 - 4.01.2019

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January 4, Fineko/abc.az. China's population has fallen for the first time in 70 years, so in 2018 the country's population decreased by 1.27 million.

According to Agence France-Presse, economist Su Jian of Beijing University and fertility specialist Yi Fuxian of the University of Wisconsin-Madison (USA) came to this conclusion after studying the statistics of the State Committee on Health & Planned Childbirth of China and other publicly available data.

Scientists have estimated that the number of children born in China decreased by 2.5 million compared to 2017. This figure was expected to grow by 790,000.

In China, the population decline was recorded for the first time in 70 years. According to Yi Fuxian, this trend may be irreversible. He links the declining birth rate to the decline in the number of women of childbearing age and the reluctance to have children due to rising costs of education, housing and healthcare.

Official data on changes in China's population have not yet been published. The National Bureau of Statistics of China plans to publish them before the end of January. Accordingtotheorganization, 1.39 billionpeoplelivedinChinain 2017.

In 1979, the Chinese authorities launched a birth control campaign called "one family, one child". In 2016, the restriction on the number of children was partially removed, but the subsequent increase in the birth rate did not meet expectations.