Faced with falling births, China’s efforts to stabilize a shrinking population and maintain economic growth are failing.

Chinese women have been shunning marriage and babies at such a rapid pace that China's population in 2023 shrank for the second straight year, accelerating the government's sense of crisis over the country's rapidly aging population and its economic future.

Births in China dropped by more than 500,000 last year to just over 9 million in total, accelerating the decline in the country’s population as women shrugged off the government’s exhortations to reproduce.

The country recorded 6.39 births per 1,000 people, down from 6.77 a year earlier, China’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) announced Wednesday. The birth rate is the lowest since the founding of Communist China in 1949.

Some 9.02 million babies were born, compared with 9.56 million babies in 2022. The overall population fell in 2023 to 1.409 billion, down 2.08 million people from the previous year, the bureau said.

“To be sure, last year’s sharp decline should be partly due to the lockdowns and most likely new births will rebound in 2024, although the structural down-trend remains unchanged,” said Larry Hu, chief China economist for Macquarie Group.

The country’s demographic shift comes at a time when its growth is sputtering. The NBS confirmed that China’s economy grew by 5.2% last year, compared to a government target of around 5%.

While this expansion marks a significant pick-up over 2022, when China’s economy grew by just 3%, it is still one of the country’s worst economic performances in over three decades.