Population on Chinese mainland records negative growth for first time in 61 years, decreasing by 850,000 in 2022
Global Times
By Global Times Published: Jan 17, 2023 10:39 AM
The population on the Chinese mainland recorded negative growth for the first time in 61 years, decreasing by 850,000 in 2022, data released by National Bureau of Statistics of China (NBS) showed.
By the end of 2022, the national population was 1.41billion, including population of 31 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities and servicemen, but excluding residents of Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan and foreigners living in the mainland, a decrease of 0.85 million over that at the end of 2021, the NBS announced on Tuesday.
It is the first time that the country's population has recorded negative growth in 61 years since 1962.
In 2022, the number of births was 9.56 million with a birth rate of 6.77 per thousand, marking the first time since 1950 that new births have fallen below 10 million and the third year the country's birth rate has fallen below 1 percent.
NBS data also showed the country recorded 10.41 million deaths, equal to a mortality rate of 7.37 per thousand, with the overall natural population growth rate of minus 0.60 per thousand.
China has conducted a nationwide population census every decade, with the latest carried out in 2020. In a non-nationwide census year like 2022, China runs population sampling survey on November 1 each year, meaning the number of deaths for December is not available, an official from the NBS said.
China's total population size peaked in 2022, much earlier than expected, which means the country's population will maintain negative growth from 2023 or enter an era of negative growth after 2023, Cai Fang, former deputy director of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said previously.
Yuan Xin, a professor from the Institute of Population and Development at Nankai University's School of Economics, said in 2022 that negative population growth is the inevitable result of the country's long-term low fertility rate, and China's population has entered an era of zero growth.
Birth data for 2021 released by 31 provinces and regions in China showed that 13 provinces had a negative population growth rate, and only six among the top 10 provinces had birth numbers exceeding 500,000.
The population size during the early stage of contraction will still be huge. China's population begin to fall in 2022, but the total population will still exceed 1.4 billion in 2035 and will still be around 1.3 billion in 2050, Yuan said.
China implemented a third-child policy in May of 2021 and rolled out a series of stimulus measures to boost population growth. A number of cities, provinces and regions across the country have rolled out incentive policies such as issuing subsidies to families with a second or third child.
From the perspective of gender, the male population was 722.06 million, the female population was 689.69 million and the sex ratio of the total population is 104.69 (the female is 100).
In terms of age structure, the working-age population between 16 and 59 stood at 875.56 million, accounting for 62.0 percent of the national population, and the population aged 60 or above reached 280.04 million, accounting for 19.8 percent of the total, among which 209.78 million were aged 65 or above, accounting for 14.9 percent of the total population, the NBS confirmed.
In terms of urban-rural structure, the permanent residents in urban areas were 920.71 million, an increase of 6.46 million over the end of 2021 and the permanent residents in rural areas were 491.04 million, a decrease of 7.31 million. The share of urban population in the total population was 65.22 percent, 0.50 percentage point higher than that at the end of the previous year, NBS data showed.
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