The population of China has fallen for the first time in 60 years, dropping by 850,000 over the course of 2022.
According to the National Bureau of Statistics, the birth rate has reached its lowest point since records began over than 70 years ago, down to 6.77 for every 1,000 people. In 2019, the birth rate was 10.41 per 1,000 people.
The number of women of childbearing age, which is defined by the country as women between the ages of 15 and 49, also fell by over four million last year.
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It has been described as an "historic turning point" for the nation, and will spell the onset of a "long-term and irreversible population decline", according to Wang Feng, an expert on Chines demographic change at the University of California, Irvine.
China's one-child policy was scrapped in 2016 and replaced with a two-child policy, however the number of births has fallen in each year since the change.
The death rate in the nation of 1.4 billion people has risen to its highest level since 1970 to 7.37 per 1,000 people.
