The nation's population shrank last year for the first time in more than six decades, official data showed on Tuesday, as birth rates plunged to record lows.

The population stood at around 1,411,750,000 at the end of 2022, Beijing's National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) reported on Tuesday, a decrease of 850,000 from the end of the previous year.

The number of births was 9.56 million, the NBS said, while the number of deaths was 10.41 million.

An expert in population policy from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Stuart Gietel-Basten, told RTHK a falling population and an ageing demographic are here to stay, but but they are only problems if the central government fails to adapt.

"You can't turn that around, this is the new paradigm for the next hundred years. So there's really no point in thinking about whether it's problem or not because we have to respond to it," Giestel-Basten said.

"[Shifting] from a younger population to an older population, that is inevitably what China will have to continue to do – to transform and evolve its society and its economy in the face of these new demographic circumstances," he added.

China ended its "one-child policy" – imposed in the 1980s owing to fears of overpopulation – in 2016, and began allowing couples to have three children in 2021.

Many local authorities have also launched measures to encourage couples to have children.

The southern megacity of Shenzhen, for example, now offers a birth bonus and allowances paid until the child is three years old.

A couple who has their first baby will automatically receive 3,000 yuan, an amount that rises to 10,000 yuan for their third.

In the country's east, the city of Jinan has since January 1 paid a monthly stipend of 600 yuan for couples that have a second child.

However, these steps have not put an end to the long-term trend.

Online searches for baby strollers on the country's Baidu search engine dropped 17 percent in 2022 and are down 41 percent since 2018, while searches for baby bottles are down more than a third since 2018.

In contrast, searches for elderly care homes surged eight-fold last year.

Long-term, United Nations experts see China's population shrinking by 109 million by 2050, more than triple the decline of their previous forecast in 2019. (Additional reporting by AFP and Reuters)
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Last updated: 2023-01-17 HKT 15:30