“Our clients set their sales targets based on the population and the demographic structure of their cities. It is very important for us,” he said.
Chen has spent more than a decade in the wedding photo industry and travels to different cities to train clients. Over the years he has sensed differences between cities with growing populations and those with shrinking ones.
Business in his hometown of Chengdu is stable. It is one of the few cities that managed to attract a substantial number of migrants last year, helping to boost the population by 71,000 people, or 0.33 per cent, compared to a year earlier.
But a shrinking population has cast a long shadow over other regions. Business in many cities – from the northeastern provinces to Beijing – has been gloomy.
“Overall, the population nationwide is shrinking and with people getting married at a much older age, we earn a lot less than a few years ago,” he said.
Chen is among the many people in business and elsewhere who have felt the pinch of China’s population crisis, which has led to shrinking cities. The implications are sweeping: from abandoned buildings and a shrinking workforce and consumer market, to smaller fiscal revenues for local governments.
