While the number of births rose by about 520,000 last year to 9.3mn, following a record low in 2023, they were still outpaced by deaths and have declined by nearly half since the peak of 17.9mn in 2017.
Zhuang Yanfang, an educator and owner of three kindergartens in Jinhua, a city in China’s prosperous coastal Zhejiang province, decided to turn one of her facilities, which at its peak had boasted 270 children, into a 42-bed nursing home in 2023.
“With the birth rate dropping, enrolments had declined,” said Zhuang. She estimated that “90 per cent of private kindergartens have closed” in the rapidly ageing community.
Despite expanding her two remaining kindergarteners to provide day care for infants starting from 10 months old, she was not optimistic. The facilities had only about 150 children combined, down from more than 1,000 a few years ago.
Some see opportunities for reforming China’s education system in response to the demographic cliff. HKUST’s Gietel-Basten said that Beijing could reallocate resources saved by the declining student numbers to improve the overall quality of the education system, from providing better day-care facilities for infants to investing in its universities.
Even Zhuang, the kindergarten operator, has found that the transition to running nursing homes has its own challenges.
Madison taxpayers, meanwhile support additional bricks and mortar spending despite stagnant enrollment:
“Over that period, (Madison) the district has lost a net total of 13,005 students.”