According to the recently published China Statistical Yearbook 2020 compiled by the National Bureau of Statistics, China's birth rate fell below 1 percent last year, marking a new low in 43 years. The birth rate in 2020 was recorded as 8.52 per thousand people, with a natural growth rate of the population accounting for 1.45 per thousand, also a new low in 43 years. Demographers contributed the sharp decline to the falling number of women of childbearing age, and the impact of COVID-19. Statistics from China's Ministry of Civil Affairs show that there were 5.88 million registered marriages during the first three quarters this year, a fall of 17.5 percent compared with last year. There were 966,000 couples registered for divorce in the first half of this year, a decline of 50 percent compared with the same period last year. China in May announced to further lift its family planning policy to allow each couple to have up to three children after the number of the country's newborns declined for four years straight, a major policy shift from the current second-child policy. The South China Morning Post (November 23) called for it to be treated as a "serious crisis".
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