The Chinese government said on Tuesday that 9.56 million people were born in 2022, while 10.41 million died. It was the first time deaths exceeded births in China since the early 1960s, when Mao Zedong’s failed economic experiment, the Great Leap Forward, caused severe hunger and death.

The world’s most populous nation has reached a turning point: China’s population has begun to drop following years of a gradual, irreversible decline in its birthrate.

The Chinese government said on Tuesday that there were 9.56 million births and 10.41 million deaths in 2022. It was the first time deaths exceeded births in China since the early 1960s, when Mao Zedong’s failed economic experiment, the Great Leap Forward, caused severe hunger and death.

The birth rate decreased from 10.6 million in 2021 for the sixth consecutive year. This loss, coupled with a long-running increase in life expectancy, is pushing China into a demographic crisis that will have global repercussions in this century, not only for China and its economy.

The announcement comes at a difficult time for the Beijing government, which is dealing with the aftermath of the abrupt reversal of its zero-tolerance policy toward COVID last month.

China has evolved as an economic superpower and the world’s manufacturing floor over the past four decades. This change resulted in a rise in life expectancy, which contributed to the current scenario, in which more people are ageing and fewer kids are being born. By 2035, roughly a third of China’s population, or 400 million individuals, are projected to be over the age of 60.

This tendency hastens another cause for concern: the day when China will no longer have enough people of working age to power the rapid economic expansion that has made it a worldwide economic dynamo. Additionally, labour shortages will cut tax revenues and payments to a pension system that is already under extreme strain.

India’s population is projected to surpass China’s this year, according to a recent projection by the United Nations, and this could have ramifications for the world order, as some analysts have claimed.

Last year, Chinese officials acknowledged that the nation was on the cusp of a demographic decrease that would certainly begin before 2025. However, it occurred sooner than demographers, statisticians, and the Chinese Communist Party had predicted.

Officials have taken measures to halt the birth rate drop. In 2016, the 35-year-old one-child regulation was modified and families were permitted to have two children. In 2021, the limit was raised to three.