Declining number of births in China: a decomposition analysis

Recent drastic changes in marriage and fertility behaviour have a considerable impact on China’s annual number of births.Population momentum and changing fertility policy largely determine the changing number of births in China over the past two decades.While the annual number of births have been steadily fluctuat-ing around 16-18 million,contrary trends in the number of the first births and the second births have been observed.The two-child policy produced marked effects on the rising number of the second births,which is however to a large extent offset by the declining number of the first births resulting from rapidly postponing age at first marriage.A decomposition analysis demonstrates that all demographic factors are depressing birth numbers,including the size of reproductive-age women and its age structure,proportion married and marital fertility in the very recent years.China’s seventh population census conducted in 2020 suggests a more rapid decline in birth numbers,marking the start of a lowest-low fertility in Chinese history.