Shenzhen reports decrease in population

The southern boomtown of Shenzhen reported a slight population decrease for 2022 — a first since the city's founding in 1979.

According to the Shenzhen municipal bureau of statistics, the city had 17.66 million permanent residents at the end of 2022, a drop of about 20,000 from 2021.

Last year, there were 5.83 million permanent residents with Shenzhen household registrations, accounting for 33 percent of the overall population of the city. The number of migrant workers was 11.82 million in 2022, decreasing by 290,000 from the year before.

He Yafu, a demographer, told news portal Jiemian that the reduction in the permanent resident population was the result of the COVID-19 pandemic, as demand for employment in some industries fell. This led some migrant workers to return to their hometowns in 2022.

Additionally, Shenzhen tightened its household registration policies in 2021. In May that year, Shenzhen set full-time undergraduate as the bottom line for academic talent and lifted requirements for technical and skilled talent.

It also increased the residential and employment time for household registration applicants from five years to 10 years.

The number of married women of childbearing age in Shenzhen has also declined, following a trend since 2015. In 2021, the number of such women in the city's permanent resident population was 3.76 million, a decrease of 8.68 percent from its peak in 2015.