Is a demographic winter approaching? - Patrick Pullicino

China is concerned about its shrinking population. Estimates are that its population is now shrinking by 1.1 per cent per year.

Last year, China clamped down on abortion for “non-medical” reasons and, five days ago,  its government decided to discourage abortions and take steps to make fertility treatment more accessible as part of efforts to boost one of the world’s lowest birth rates.

China’s total fertility rate is 1.7 births per woman, which is low. But not compared to Malta’s. Malta had a rate of 1.68 in 2000 but this has continued to drop and now the rate is down to 1.10, the lowest in the EU. And Malta is the only country without abortion in Europe,  so the rates compared to other EU countries and China must be even lower.

One other important fact is that Europe’s fertility statistics show that over 30 per cent of births in Malta in 2020 were to foreign-born mothers. Statistics for 2021 show that 20 per cent of Maltese residents, or 103,718 people, were foreigners.

This means that, for foreign mothers, the fertility rate is 50 per cent higher than for Maltese mothers. This also means that,  for the Maltese, the fertility rate is even lower than 1.10.

The Chinese are...