In 2023, India replaced China as the globe’s top-populated country. Having peaked at 1.413 billion in 2021, the Chinese population contracted the following two years to 1.409 billion.

Beijing, which had announced, and subsequently strictly enforced, a one-child policy in 1980, introduced a two-child policy in 2016 before allowing families to have three children in 2021. The policy has been augmented with monetary and non-monetary benefits (such as paid leaves) for men and women who opt to enlarge their families. However, as initial statistics together with prevalent social trends bear out, the success of the three-child policy remains doubtful.

Several other countries, particularly advanced economies, are facing depopulation. In Japan, the world’s third-largest economy and Asia’s most advanced nation, the population peaked in 2008 and then began to fall. It’s projected that the Japanese population will shrink by 50 per cent from the peak level by the end of this century.

South Korea, one of Asia’s biggest success stories in high-quality development, has the lowest fertility rate in the world. Like Japan, South Korea is also projected to have its population shrunk by half at the turn of the century from the current level of 51 million.

Why should depopulation be a matter of concern in the aforementioned countries, and other such nations? As a rule, depopulation together with increased life expectancy is accompanied by a growing share of old people in the total population. In China, the old (aged 65 and above) currently constitute 14 per cent of the total population and may exceed 25 per cent by 2050. In Japan, the old account for 29 per cent – the highest anywhere in the world – of the population and are forecast to make up 35 per cent by 2040. Currently, 19 per cent of South Koreans are aged 65 or above. The share is likely to rise to 37 per cent by 2045.

This means that in the coming years........

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