Emily Feng says: “Dr. Wang Feng is a sociology professor at the University of California, Irvine. And he explains birth rates were already falling in the 1970s, well before China imposed a one-child policy cap in all families. And now, the people descended from those generations are also having fewer children; an echo from the past, though, for new reasons.” Wang Feng: “There is the drastic postponement of marriage among young people. That change has accompanied this vast expansion in education - higher education - urbanization and changes in attitudes.”

For the full story, please visit https://www.npr.org/2023/01/17/1149646326/for-the-first-time-since-1960-deaths-outnumbered-births-in-china-last-year.