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Effects of Population Loss on Basic Public Service Provision in Cities: An Analysis of 110 Cities in the Yangtze River Economic Belt

Author(s)

Hao Liang*, Jiamin Deng

Affiliation(s)

College of Humanities and Foreign Languages, China Jiliang University, Hangzhou, China *Corresponding Author

Abstract

Against the background of negative population growth and widening regional population differentiation in China, population shrinkage has become an important issue for urban public service governance. This paper compiles city‑level panel data encompassing 110 prefecture-level cities across the Yangtze River Economic Belt during the period 2010–2024, identifing shrinking cities based on continuous negative growth in permanent residents, constructs a six-dimensional evaluation index system for the basic public services supply in cities, and measures the composite level through an entropy-weighted TOPSIS method. A two-way fixed effects model, mediation model and grouped regressions are then employed. The results show that population shrinkage significantly affects the provision of urban basic public services. Fiscal expenditure partly mediates this relationship. The negative impact is more pronounced in upstream and midstream cities, while it is insignificant in downstream cities; it is also significant in mildly and deeply shrinking cities but insignificant in occasionally shrinking cities. The findings suggest that public service governance under population shrinkage should shift from expansion-oriented provision to bottom-line protection, targeted fiscal support and differentiated adjustment.

Keywords

Population Shrinkage; Urban Basic Public Services; Fiscal Expenditure; Yangtze River Economic Belt

References

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