Two-thirds of the time, population growth is negative

Text丨 Western Jun

The intensity of the competition for population stock has been pushed one step further.

So far, among the 29 provinces that have released their 2023 population data (Heilongjiang and Tibet have not yet been released), 19 have negative permanent population growth.

Drafting: City Finance

This is an important watershed moment – two-thirds of the population is beginning to enter the downward path of permanent population.

The pace of change is faster than everyone thinks. This is not only a change in quantity, but also a reconstruction of the spatial distribution of the population.

The curtain of a great change has officially begun.

01

Judging from the data of the last three years, the expansion of areas with negative population growth is very intuitive.

2021: The permanent population of 16 provinces in the country has declined, and 15 provinces have increased, which is basically a flat state.

2022: There appears to be a turning point, with the number of provinces with negative population growth falling to 13, and the number of provinces with population growth rising to 18 – that is, almost two-thirds of the local population changes are positive.

The reason is not complicated: due to the epidemic, the population of many coastal provinces has returned inland.

For example, this year, the population of the four major first-tier cities all experienced a rare negative growth. Inland provinces such as Jiangxi, Shanxi, Yunnan and Gansu have achieved a shift from negative to positive population growth.

However, this is only a short-lived transition.

2023: As society switches to a "normal" mode and the population flows back from the inland to the coastal areas, the situation has reversed, with the number of provinces with negative population growth rapidly increasing to 19 – two-thirds of the 31 provinces and municipalities.

Among them, six provinces, including Anhui, Sichuan, Guangxi, Fujian, Chongqing, and Qinghai, have experienced negative growth in permanent population for the first time in ten years.

02

How to understand this trend?

First of all, this is an inevitability under the competition of population stock, and the possibility of reversal is very small.

In 2022, the country's total population will decrease by 850,000, and in 2023, this number will climb to 2.08 million.

Judging from the data of the "Seven Censuses", in the ten years from 2010 to 2020, only Gansu, Inner Mongolia, Shanxi, Liaoning, Jilin, and Heilongjiang provinces with a decrease in permanent population were 6.

Compared with the current data, the two changes are very obvious.

First, in the last decade, provinces with resident population growth were still the mainstream. Now, provinces with negative population growth have become the mainstream.

Second, in the last decade, the six regions with reduced populations were all northern provinces. Now, many southern provinces have also begun to experience negative population growth.

It can be said that the gap between the north and the south in terms of demographic change has gradually evolved into a situation in which the gap between the north and the south and between the east, the middle and the west coexists.

In 2023, among the 18 inland regions, only Xinjiang, Guizhou and Ningxia will be able to maintain positive growth in permanent population. Moreover, the main reason for their population growth is because of the relatively high birth rate.

For example, in 2022, the birth rate of Guizhou and Ningxia will be above 10‰. In the same period, the national average birth rate was only 6.77 per thousand.

Second, the reasons for the negative population growth vary in different provinces.

For example, Sichuan, Liaoning, Anhui and other places, despite the decline in permanent population, are still among the provinces with a net inflow of population. In other words, the decline in population is mainly dragged down by negative natural growth.

In other provinces, although the natural growth is positive, the scale of the net outflow of population is large. Such as Guangxi, Guizhou, etc.

Moreover, the spatial divergence of population distribution will continue to intensify.

This is manifested not only in the east, in the west, in the north and south, but also in the interior of a place.

For example, Zhejiang is the only province left in 2023 where all districts and cities in the province can maintain population growth.

In addition, the trend of population concentration in large cities will become more apparent.

One detail is that, almost without exception, the population of all provincial capitals is still increasing – even in large provinces with negative population growth.

This process will continue to be consolidated as more and more localities promote the construction of strong provincial capitals, and the policy level clearly encourages the concentration of various development factors in advantageous areas.

03

Areas with negative population growth are the first to feel the impact of demographic change.

However, under the premise of a decrease in the total population, the impact of demographic change will be all-encompassing, and no place will be completely immune.

You know, those central cities that are still able to maintain population growth today have also seen a significant decline in their growth compared to the past.

For example, in the decade from 2010 to 2020, the population of Shenzhen and Guangrong increased by more than 5 million, but now the increase is only about 100,000, or even less than 100,000. This is obviously not the same as the average annual increase of hundreds of thousands in the past.

This means that even the "grabbing of people" in the central city will face greater difficulties, and the space will be greatly reduced.

In the past few years, the "war for talents" has been dominated by "material rewards" such as sending qualifications for settlement and subsidies for house purchases. But today, except for a few cities, most places are actually infinitely close to the "zero threshold" to settle down.

People's right to choose the city will be more sufficient.

In this case, in addition to industry and employment opportunities, the quality of public services and business environment will become more and more important for cities to "grab people".

A noteworthy trend is that, as society as a whole slows down, social attitudes tend to be more conservative and more secure than adventurous.

Judging from the current situation of first-tier cities, such as Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Beijing, the scale of population return is not as large as imagined.

In the past two years, for example, Beijing's population has fallen by 28,000, Shanghai's population has fallen by nearly 20,000, and Guangzhou's population has increased by less than 20,000.

In other words, in the era of population stock, the impact is actually global. Every city needs a new response.

04

The population belongs to the "basic plate". The negative growth of the total population actually indicates that we are entering a stage of great "contraction".

The most intuitive phenomenon is that in the past year or two, the closure of obstetrics and kindergartens has become a popular trend.

According to the data, in 2022, the number of kindergartens in the country will show negative growth for the first time since 2008, a decrease of 5,610 from the previous year, and in 2023, the number of kindergartens will decrease by 14,800 compared with the previous year.

That is, in the past two years, 20,400 kindergartens have disappeared.

Theoretically, if the population is decreasing, can the quality of public services be higher? But not necessarily, because a decrease in population means that demand is reduced, and the corresponding space for domestic demand and investment is also shrinking.

As a result, the whole body will be affected, and society will enter the "stock" game in all aspects.

For example, if we look at the scale of urban development based on the current population situation, most cities will inevitably need new adjustments in their plans in terms of industry, infrastructure, and public services.

In fact, the changes are already evident. For example, even in megacities such as Shenzhen and Chengdu, the scale of new subway construction has shrunk.

In addition, not long ago, some infrastructure construction in 12 key areas was halted due to debt, which also clearly shows that change is happening.

The cruelty of stock competition is also manifested in the fact that society has to pay for the "past" with more resources.

On the one hand, many localities have to use a considerable part of their funds to repay their debts.

A noteworthy phenomenon is that in the 2024 government work reports made public in various places, "prevention and resolution of local debts" frequently appear. The relevant documents clearly require that key provinces should "smash the pot and sell iron" to resolve local debt risks.

It is precisely because of the pressure that a very rare expression has appeared in many places recently: never buy new ones that can be repaired, and never discard those that can be reused.

On the other hand, the pace has slowed down, but with the rise of aging, the burden of spending on public services such as pension is increasing rapidly.

From the perspective of the proportion of GDP, the proportion of pension in GDP in mainland China increased from 1.9% in 2001 to 12.4% in 2020, with rapid growth.

However, it is still well below the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) country average. For reference, in 2019, the arithmetic mean of pension fund assets as a percentage of GDP in OECD member countries was 54.2%.

Even, we have to go through the transformation from "infrastructure maniac" to "maintenance maniac". The massive amount of infrastructure that will correspond to higher and higher maintenance costs over time.

Even if domestic demand is expanded, it has to turn to tapping stocks.

An important move in the current promotional fee is to promote large-scale equipment renewal and consumer goods trade-in. The name of this initiative has already marked a very realistic footnote to the era of "quantification" at a micro level.

Negative population growth is only a symptom. What's even more thrilling is a series of profound changes behind it.