China’s population shrank last year for the first time in more than six decades, official data showed Tuesday, as the birth rate slows in the face of mounting financial pressures and shifting social attitudes.

The world’s most populous country is facing a looming demographic crisis as its workforce ages, which analysts warn could stymie economic growth and pile pressure on strained public coffers. Analysts point to the soaring cost of living as well as a growing number of women in the workforce and seeking higher education as reasons behind the slowdown.

The mainland Chinese population stood at around 1,411,750,000 at the end of 2022, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) reported a decrease of 850,000 from the end of the previous year. The number of births was 9.56 million while the number of deaths stood at 10.41 million.

The last time China’s population declined was in the early 1960s when the country was battling the worst famine in its modern history, a result of the disastrous Mao Zedong agricultural policy known as the Great Leap Forward.

China ended its strict one-child policy — imposed in the 1980s owing to fears of overpopulation — in 2016 and began allowing couples to have three children in 2021. But that has failed to reverse the demographic decline for a country that has long relied on its vast workforce as a driver of economic growth.

The Chinese population could decline each year by 1.1 percent on average, according to a study by the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences that was updated last year and shared with AFP.

China could have only 587 million inhabitants in 2100, less than half of today, according to the most pessimistic projections of that team of demographers. And India is set to dethrone China this year as the most populous country in the world, according to the United Nations.

“A declining and ageing population will be a real concern for China, It will have a profound impact on China’s economy from the present through to 2100.”