HONG KONG (Reuters) - China's commercial capital Shanghai saw its&nbsp;population&nbsp;fall in&nbsp;2022&nbsp;in the first decline in five years, official data showed,&nbsp;after&nbsp;authorities imposed draconian&nbsp;COVID-19&nbsp;lockdowns&nbsp;and more than 250,000 migrant workers departed.
The data, published by&nbsp;Shanghai's&nbsp;statistics bureau on Tuesday, showed the densely-packed hub had 24.76 million people last year, compared with 24.89 million people in 2021.
Shanghai's&nbsp;figures came&nbsp;after&nbsp;Beijing also posted its first&nbsp;population&nbsp;drop since 2003.
Both cities are in line with national trends. China's&nbsp;population&nbsp;fell last year for the first time in six decades, weighed down by rising living costs especially in big, sprawling urban hubs, weak economic growth, and changing attitudes towards raising a family.
Around 60% of people living in Shanghai said they wanted just one child or none at all, according to an official survey by the bureau. More than 28% of Shanghai residents polled said they did not plan to have an additional child because of the high childcare costs.
Shanghai's&nbsp;birth rate dropped to 4.4 per 1,000 people from 4.7 a year earlier, while its death rate increased to 6.0 per 1,000 people from 5.6 due to a rapidly ageing&nbsp;population.
China last year recorded its lowest ever birth rate, of 6.77 per 1,000 people.
Around 18.7% of&nbsp;Shanghai's&nbsp;population&nbsp;is older than 65, above the national average of 14.9%.
Many women in Shanghai were put off having children during a stringent&nbsp;COVID&nbsp;lockdown in April and May last year, which demographers said could have profoundly damaged their desire to have children.
Concerned by China's shrinking&nbsp;population, political advisers to the government have made more than 20 recommendations to boost birth rates, though experts said the best they can do was to slow the&nbsp;population's decline.
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(Reporting by Farah Master and the Beijing newsroom; Editing by Jamie Freed)

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Shanghai's population drops in 2022 after COVID lockdowns