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Explainer | Is China’s population a cause for concern?
- China’s overall population continued to grow in 2020, rising to 1.412 billion people, up from 1.4 billion a year earlier
- Chinese mothers gave birth to just 12 million babies in 2020 – the lowest total since 11.87 million in 1961 amid the Great Chinese Famine
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What is China’s population?
China’s overall population continued to grow in 2020, rising to 1.412 billion at the end of the year from 1.4 billion a year earlier.
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Beijing began releasing the results of its seventh national population census on in early May 2021, and the results showed the number of new births fell for the fourth consecutive year in 2020, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
China's population by decade (1950-2020)
| Year | Population (in millions) |
|---|---|
| 1950 | 552 |
| 1960 | 662.1 |
| 1970 | 829.9 |
| 1980 | 987.1 |
| 1990 | 1143.3 |
| 2000 | 1267.4 |
| 2010 | 1340.9 |
| 2020 | 1412 |
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Source: National Bureau of Statistics
The once-a-decade census was conducted in late 2020, but the data release ended up being twice postponed in 2021 – first from early April to late April, and then to an indefinite date in the future.
Earlier in 2021, various provinces and cities in the world’s most populous country disclosed their own birth data through government and state media reports. In some cases, birth rates declined more than 30 per cent in 2020 from a year earlier.
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China is also ageing at an unprecedented rate due to its previous old one-child policy.
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