Ejercicio Option A - 3 · Inglés PAU Castilla y León Ordinaria 2021

OPTION A

NUMBER OF REGISTERED NEWBORNS IN CHINA DROPS 15% IN 2020

Births in China fell sharply last year as the coronavirus pandemic intensified the scale of the

demographic challenge facing the nation. They dropped 15 per cent from 2019, according to data from the

country's Ministry of Public Security, with 10.04m births in the country last year compared with 11.79m a

year earlier based on household registrations. The steep decline is the latest evidence of the demographic

5 challenges facing China, where urbanisation and the historic one-child policy has resulted in a rapidly

ageing population that will put pressure on public economy over coming decades.

"We've known for some time there would be a decline, but such a big drop was beyond our

expectations," said Huang Wenzheng, a demography expert at the Center for China and Globalization, a

Beijing-based think-tank. "We believe last year's decline is related to Covid: that households are more

10 worried now."

In 2015, China's leadership loosened its family planning restrictions in order to address looming

demographic problems, but the two-child policy it implemented has failed to strengthen birth rates.

Academics expect China to further relax its birth policies, but also warn the moves may come too late. "It's

very clear from those numbers that the negative demographic spiral in which China finds itself is powerful

15 and will cause really large scale fundamental problems," said Dariusz Kowalczyk, an economist at Crédit

Agricole in Hong Kong. Kowalczyk anticipates the Chinese population will begin to shrink in 2027, which

he says will limit its potential to challenge the US as the world's leading superpower.

Pessimism over the data contrasts with a recent economic boom in China following the pandemic. Gross

domestic product grew 2.3 per cent in 2020 in contrast to declines across other economies. Experts say the

20 country's birth rate challenge will require additional policy measures. "Although we might see a small

recovery in the next few years, the overall trend is one of long-term decline in birth rates," said Huang. "To

truly address this issue, we need to make it a policy priority." (Fragment adapted from The Financial Times.)

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