THE NEW YORK TIMES: Only 12 million babies were born last year, the lowest number of births since 1961, providing fresh evidence of a looming demographic crisis that could complicate Beijing’s ambitions.
China’s population is growing at its slowest pace in decades, with a plunge in births and a graying work force presenting the Communist Party with one of its gravest social and economic challenges.
Figures for a census conducted last year and released on Tuesday showed the country’s population at 1.41 billion people, about 72 million more than those counted in 2010. This was the narrowest increase recorded since the Communist Party conducted its first census, in 1953.
Only 12 million babies were born in China last year, according to Ning Jizhe, the head of China’s National Bureau of Statistics, the fourth year in a row that births have fallen in the country. That makes it the lowest official number of births since 1961, when a widespread famine caused by Communist Party policies killed millions of people, and only 11.8 million babies were born.
The figures show that China faces a demographic crisis that could stunt growth in the world’s second-largest economy. China faces aging-related challenges similar to that of developed countries, but its households live on much lower incomes on average than the United States and elsewhere. » | Sui-Lee Wee | Published” Monday, May 10, 2021; Updated: Tuesday, May 11, 2021
Democracy is an illusion! It’s become a political system fostered by the élite, for the élite, in order to fool the people that they have a stake in the system. In actual fact, they have virtually none. The whole political system in the modern era, despite having noble beginnings, is now used to benefit the few at the expense of the many. – Mark Alexander, June 29, 2018
Showing posts with label population changes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label population changes. Show all posts
May 11, 2021
November 11, 2012
SPIEGEL ONLINE INTERNATIONAL: While home prices in Germany's urban areas are skyrocketing, the opposite trend can be seen in less densely settled regions. There, shrinking populations are creating housing surpluses and vacant homes in a trend that experts say will soon spread across the country as its population grows grayer.
For now, things in the Altenwalde district of Cuxhaven, a port city of 52,000 residents in northeastern Germany located near the mouth of the Elbe River, still look prim and proper in that sort of Playmobil tidiness that Germans love. The little houses are packed in close together into the kind of orderly settlement one can find in thousands of places across Germany.
One-third of all of the residential structures in western Germany are single- or two-family homes built between 1950 and 1978. These were the dream houses meant to offer their owners peace, quiet and financial security. But now Germany is undergoing a generational change. There are fewer young people and more old ones, and grandma's little house has gone from being a wise investment to a money loser.
One can already see the signs of this tectonic shift in Altenwalde. It isn't everywhere, but it still can't be missed. There are houses with empty window panes, closed shutters, empty driveways and overgrown gardens. These are symptoms of being vacant or of only being inhabited by a single, usually elderly person who cannot afford to, doesn't have the energy to or simply doesn't care to keep things up. Indeed, demographic change has arrived in Germany's famously idyllic suburbs. » | Christian Tröster | Friday, November 09, 2012
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