China's Shrinking Provinces, Population Growth Slumps to 1978 Level

Some provinces are shrinking as population leaves, others have negative birth-death ratios.

iFeng: 15省份人口数据出炉：河南44年来出生人口首次跌破80万

Among the 15 provinces, Zhejiang, Guangdong, and Hubei are among the top three in terms of population growth; 12 provinces have announced the birth population data in 2021. Guangdong is the only province with a birth population exceeding one million, while Henan, the most populous province The birth population has fallen below 800,000 for the first time since 1978.

Hubei was hammered by the SARS2 lockdown:

Hubei's resident population from the central region ranks third in increments, reaching 547,000. In terms of natural population growth, Hubei will have 404,000 births in 2021, with a birth rate of 6.98‰; the natural population growth rate will be -0.88‰. According to the "Hubei Statistical Yearbook 2021" (the statistical yearbook has released the birth population data since 1985), a reporter from China Business News found that this is also the first time that the natural growth rate of the permanent population in Hubei has turned negative in decades. Based on this calculation, in 2021, Hubei's natural population growth will decrease by about 51,100 people, while the mechanical population growth, that is, the net inflow from outside the province, will increase by 655,000 people. It is worth noting that, judging from the changes in the permanent population of Hubei since 2011, from 2011 to 2019, the permanent population of Hubei has been increasing, but in 2020, it decreased by 1.517 million compared with 2019, and increased by 0.547 million in 2021.

In the opinion of experts, such a large change is closely related to the epidemic. Niu Fengrui, a researcher at the Urban Development and Environment Research Center of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told Yicai.com that the magnitude of Hubei's population changes is related to special external factors and accidental factors. That is to say, due to the impact of the epidemic in 2020, some people will be outside and not included in the statistics; by 2021, when the economy and society fully recover, these people will come back.