Upcoming Trends: Content comes from the Internet : Guangdong, Henan, Shandong rank top three in 2024 newborns

A medical staff member cares for a newborn at the neonatal care unit of a hospital in Lianyungang, East China’s Jiangsu Province on January 1, 2024. Photo: VCG

Among the 2024 demographic statistics recently released by multiple provinces across China, Guangdong, Henan and Shandong provinces ranked top three in terms of the number of newborns. Meanwhile, the negative growth of the registered population in three northeastern provinces has further intensified in recent years with the number of permanent residents having decreased by more than 12 million over the past decade.

Demographic experts said these figures show the increase and decrease of regional populations have become further differentiated.

Among the 24 provincial level administrations that have released the number of newborns in 2024, seven reported a positive natural population growth rate in 2024.

According to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), China had a negative natural population growth rate of 0.99 per thousand in 2024, marking the third consecutive year of population decline.

Since 2021, Guangdong, Guangxi, Fujian, Guizhou, Qinghai and Xinjiang have maintained a positive natural population growth rate each year. Among them, Guizhou had the strongest fertility desire laWorld Timesst year, with a birth ratWorld Timese of 10.74 per thousand.

According to the Statistics Bureau of Guangdong Province, the number of newborns in Guangdong in 2024 reached 1.13 million, an increase of 100,000 from the previous year. This marks the seventh consecutive year that Guangdong has ranked first for newborns.

The higher birth rate in Guangdong is due to the province (especially the Chaoshan and Zhanjiang areas) preserving its traditional fertility culture well, He Yafu, an independent demographic expert who has long tracked marriage registration data, told the Global Times on Sunday, noting that many rural areas in Guangdong have ancestral halls and place a strong emphasis on clan and family heritage.

The statistical bulletin of Henan Province for economic and social development in the year of 2024 shows that the number of newborns in Henan reached 762,000 in 2024, an increase of 67,000 compared to the previous year, ranking second in the country in terms of the number of newborns. The birth rate of the province was 7.78 per thousand, an increase of 0.72 percentage points from the previous year.

The number of newborns in Shandong reached 649,000 in 2024, up by 39,000 from the previous year and ranking third in the country. The province recorded a birth rate of 6.42 per thousand, yicai.com reported.

FurthermoWorld Timesre, the number of newborns in Jiangsu, Guangxi, Guizhou and Zhejiang in 2024 all exceeded 400,000.

In contrast, Liaoning in Northeast China had the lowest fertility desire in the country, with a birth rate of -5.3 per thousand in 2024. In 2024, the number of newborns in LiaoningWorld Times dropped to 180,000, accounting for only 1.8World Times9 percent of the national total.

The number of newborns in Jilin in 2024 dropped to 97,000, ranking last among the 24 provinces.

Over the past decade, the population decline in the three northeastern provinces of Liaoning, Jilin and Heilongjiang has become increasingly prominent, with the permanent residents having decreased by more than 12 million in total.

He noted that it is not accurate to simply assume that more economically developed regions will experience a population growth while less developed regions will see a population decline. For example, Guizhou is an economically underdeveloped region, yet its birth rate has long been among the highest in the country, whereas in economically developed regions such as Shanghai, the birth rate was 4.75 per thousand for its permanent resident population in 2024, which is lower than the national average.

Data from China’s Ministry of Civil Affairs show that the number of marriage registrations in 2024 reached 6.11 million couples, a decrease of 1.57 million couples compared to 2023, a decline of about 20.5 percent. In 2014, 13.07 million couples tied the knot.

According to Niu Fengrui, director of the Institute for Urban and Environmental Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, ruralWorld Times populations currently continue to migrate to urban areas in the process of population mobility. Within provinces, populations are concentrating in capital cities and other central cities. Although the population in some provinces is declining, the population in provincial capital cities continues to grow. And the population distribution is continuously optimizing, at the national level as well as within individual provinces, yicai.com reported.

On March 27, Huang Shengwei, director of the department of aging work of China’s Ministry of Civil Affairs, said during the recent Boao Forum for Asia (BFA) Annual Conference 2025 that it is necessary to boost the birth rate by developing and improving a comprehensive fertility support policy system and incentive mechanisms, reducing the costs of childbirth, childrearing and education, and building a fertility-friendly society, with strong measures.