Age distribution in China 2011-2021

According to the age distribution of China's population in 2021, approximately 68.3 percent of the population were in their working age between 15 and 64 years of age. Retirees aged 65 years and above made up about 14.2 percent of the total population.

Age distribution in China

As can be seen from this statistic, the age pyramid in China has been gradually shifting towards older demographics during the past decade. Mainly due to low birth rates in China, the age group of 0 to 14 year-olds has remained at around 17 percent since 2011, whereas the age groups 65 years and over have seen growth of about five percentage points. Thus, the median age of the Chinese population has been constantly rising since 1970 and is forecast to reach 48 years by 2050. Accompanied by a slightly growing mortality rate of about 7 per thousand, China is showing strong signs of an aging population.

China's aging society

The impact of this severe change in demographics is the subject of an ongoing scientific discussion. Rising standards of living in China contain the demand for better health care and pension insurance for retirees, which will be hard to meet with the social insurance system in China still being in its infancy. Per capita expenditure on medical care and services of urban households has grown sevenfold since 2000 with a clear and distinctive upward trend for the near future. As for social security spending, public pension expenditure is forecast to take up approximately nine percent of China's GDP by 2050.