According to statistics released on Tuesday, China's population decreased for the first time in more than 60 years. China's population is not the only one facing a decline.
If predictions for 2100 released by the UN last July are accurate, many nations' populations will decline in the ensuing decades, particularly those in Europe and Asia. In others, population loss has already begun.
Already, populations are declining. Over the last decade, eight countries with populations of more than ten million people have seen their populations decline. The vast majority are European.
Along with Ukraine, whose population has plummeted as a result of the Russian invasion, Italy, Portugal, Poland, Romania, and Greece are experiencing population declines.
There are numerous reasons for these declines, some of which are specific to each country, but they all share low fertility rates, which means that women are having fewer babies on average than in the past.
According to the World Bank, fertility rates in these southern and eastern European countries range from 1.2 to 1.6 children per woman. A fertility rate greater than two is required to maintain population stability.
This phenomenon is exacerbated by a massive migratory exodus in Poland, Romania, and Greece, with more people leaving to live abroad than remaining at home.
Outside of Europe, Japan's aging population is also declining. This is primarily due to a low fertility rate of 1.3 children per woman and a low rate of immigration.
Japan lost more than 3 million people between 2011 and 2021.
The same goes for the Middle East. In Syria, the population has been devastated by more than a decade of grinding war, with millions of refugees fleeing to neighbouring countries and beyond.
Approximately 606,000 men, women and children have been killed in the fighting, estimates by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR).
China, the world's most populous country, has been concerned for years about the impact of its aging population on the economy and society, but the population was not expected to decline for nearly a decade.
The discovery on Tuesday that there are now fewer people in China is expected to become a long-term trend, affecting the population for years to come. China is expected to lose nearly half of its population by 2100, dropping from more than 1.4 billion to 771 million people.
Russia, Germany, South Korea, and Spain are all expected to join this downward trend, with population declines beginning by 2030. The population of Europe as a whole would begin to decline as early as this decade.
However, there are some exceptions.
While European, American, and Asian populations should all be declining by 2100, Africa's population will continue to grow.
By 2100, the African continent's population will have risen from 1.4 billion to 3.9 billion. Africa would then be home to 38% of the world's population, up from around 18% today.