Total population of China 1980-2027

According to newest data provided by the National Bureau of Statistics of China in January 2022, the Chinese population amounted to around 1.41 billion people in 2021. The number of births in 2020 and 2021 was lower than expected, maybe also due to effects of the coronavirus pandemic. Nevertheless, there has been the general trend of a declining birth rate in China over the last decades and the National Bureau of Statistics of China formerly estimated that the size of the Chinese population might start decreasing in the second half of the 2020s. However, according to newest projections published by the IMF, the Chinese population might already start declining in 2022.

Population development in China

As of mid 2021, China was the country with the largest population worldwide, closely followed by India, which ranked second with a population of about 1.39 billion people. As population growth in India is higher than in China, India will soon become the most populous country in the world. Due to several mechanisms put into place by the Chinese government as well as changing circumstances in the working and social environment of the Chinese people, population growth has subsided over the past decades, displaying an annual population growth rate of merely between 0.3 to 0.6 percent in recent years. Nevertheless, compared to the world population in total, China held a share of about 18 percent of the overall global population in 2021.

China's aging population

In terms of demographic developments, the birth control efforts of the Chinese government had considerable effects on the demographic pyramid in China. Upon closer examination of the age distribution, a clear trend of an aging population becomes visible. In order to curb the negative effects of an aging population, the Chinese government abolished the one-child policy in 2015, which had been in effect since 1979, and introduced a three-child policy in May 2021. However, many Chinese parents nowadays are reluctant to have a second or third child, as is the case in most of the developed countries in the world. The number of births in China varied in the years following the abolishment of the one-child policy, but did not increase considerably. Among the reasons most prominent for parents not having more children are the rising living costs and costs for child care, growing work pressure, a growing trend towards self-realization and individualism, and changing social behaviors.