China’s population will shrink in 2023 for the second year in a row, the country’s statistics office said today, with the birth rate slowing as education costs rise and social attitudes change.

In 2022, China announced its first population decline in six decades.

And, last year, it lost the title of “world’s most populous country” to India, according to the UN.

The Chinese government is trying to reverse the shrinking population by offering family allowances and other incentives, but it remains not very brave, going on a communications campaign, and — now — allowing all couples to have three children.

“At the end of 2023, the national population reached 1.40967 billion people,” in other words there was a “decrease of 2.08 million compared to 2022,” the Chinese National Bureau of Statistics said.

This number only includes people with Chinese citizenship and residence in mainland China. The inhabitants of the semi-autonomous regions (Hong Kong, Macau) are not included, nor those of Taiwan, an island with 23 million inhabitants that Beijing considers a Chinese province, destined to be reunited with the rest of the country one day, even by force if necessary.

Last year’s decline is more than double that of 2022, when the Asian giant saw its population shrink by 850,000 people.

This was the first year China’s population declined since the 1960s.

The demographic decline is explained by various reasons, such as the high cost of education, a lack of confidence in the economic future, or even a growing discomfort with the institution of the family — marriage is a prerequisite in China before any couple can have a child.