China has lowest number of births since 1961

BEIJING — China reported that it had 15.23 million births in 2018, the lowest since 1961 when 11.87 million births were recorded, according to financial services firm Wind Info. <br />According to the Associated Press, citing National Bureau of Statistics data, this puts China's current population at 1.395 billion for 2018. <br />According to Business Insider, when countries fail to have enough children and have an increasing elderly population, the economy usually underperforms. <br />China's one-child policy, carried out for more than 35 years between 1979 and 2015, resulted in an artificially slowed population growth that favored males. <br />This has led to an over abundance of senior citizens with a shrinking young worker base to support them. <br />Beijing is aware of the coming demographics time bomb, but so far has only used marketing and advertising to address falling fertility rates.