Analysis of China’s Birth Rate Prediction Based on Time Series

Abstract

The birth rate in China has declined significantly since the last century, especially in recent years. Low fertility intentions and deferred childbirth were the main contributors to the drop in fertility. Nowadays, the aging problem has become more and more serious in our country. Therefore, raising the birth rate has become the top priority for the government and society. Our research modelled and predicted the fertility rate in China using R. We used the dataset from Health Nutrition and Population Statistics on Databank and selected the historical fertility rate data in China from 1964 to 2021. Firstly, we transformed these data to make the birth rate time series stationary. Then, we applied the ARIMA and the ETS models, respectively and chose the better model to forecast the short-term birth rate in China in the next five years. We found that the ARIMA model was more appropriate for predicting the short-term birth rate in China. As a result, we utilized the ARIMA(0,0,1) model for prediction. We calculated that the growth rate of the birth rate in China from 2022 to 2026 was - 0.117, which demonstrated that the fertility rate in China would decrease constantly at a rate of 0.117 each year over the ensuing five years. If the government of China still did not take any measures to improve the fertility problems, the fertility rate would further decline. Consequently, the fertility rate in China is facing an unprecedented crisis.