Wang Feng, a sociology professor at the University of California, Irvine, said the population decline had begun almost a decade earlier than the United Nations had anticipated. … Wang said the population decline could be attributed to the one-child policy that began three and half decades ago, which resulted in a smaller number of women of childbearing age, people delaying or giving up on marriage and a smaller number of births within marriages. But the pandemic has worsened the situation.

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