The adjustment however, does not seem to have encouraged couples to reproduce more children, according to experts, this may be related to urbanisation and higher cost of living in China.
China's population growth crawled last year regardless of the cancellation of the one-child policy, official data showed on Monday, increase anxieties an ageing community will rise further pressure on an already crawling economy.
Wang Feng, a sociology professor at university of California, Irving said "Decades-long social and economic changes have prepared an entirely new generation in China, for whom marriage and child bearing no longer have the importance as they used to, for their parents generation".
Data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) revealed that there were 15.23 million live births in 2018, a declination of two million from the year before.
"China's labour participation rate is not considered low worldwide, more than 700 million of our 900 million people that are of working age are employed and there is still vacancy", NBS commissioner, Ning Jize said.
He Yafu, an independent demographer in Guangdong province said : "The low birth rate has led to a seriously ageing population. On one hand, families are getting smaller, reducing support for the elderly , on the other hand, the elderly population to workforce is increasing, which raises the burden on the working population".
SIGNS :
Signs of China's dropping population growth had surfaced when data showed by some local authorities revealed a significant fall in births last year.
In a city in eastern Shandong province, Qingdao, which is one of China's most populous regions - births between January and November fell by 21% to just over 81,000 compared to the year before.
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