The country's National Bureau of Statistics reported a drop of roughly 850,000 people for a population of 1.41175 billion in 2022, marking the first decline since 1961, the last year of China's Great Famine.
However, for the coming years and decades of the 21st century, the demographic transition in China will constitute a major constraint on the growth of Chinese power. A working-age population that peaked in 2011 at more than 900 million will have declined by nearly a quarter, to some 700 million, by mid-century.
China's population decline can be traced back to the restrictive family-planning policies launched in the 1970s and an impressive economic boom fueled by China's huge labor force. China's modernization brought rapid urbanization, rising income levels, and better education to large parts of the country.
China's population shrank in 2022 for the first time in more than 60 years, a new milestone in the country's deepening demographic crisis with significant implications for its slowing economy.
China's population has fallen for the first time in 60 years, with the national birth rate hitting a record low - 6.77 births per 1,000 people. The population in 2022 - 1.4118 billion - fell by 850,000 from 2021.
The rapid expansion of China's population from 1949 to the late 1970s stoked the flames of neo-Malthusian demographers.
History. China's population reached 1 billion in 1982, the first country to do so.
Japan's population of more than 125 million has been declining for 16 years and is projected to fall to 87 million by 2070. A shrinking and aging population has huge implications for the economy and for national security as Japan fortifies its military to counter China's increasingly assertive territorial ambitions.
U.S. Between 1950 and 2010, China's total population grew 150 percent. It is projected to peak in 2030.
China's population is aging faster than almost all other countries in modern history. In 2050, the proportion of Chinese over retirement age will become 39 percent of the total population according to projections. China is rapidly aging at an earlier stage of its development than other countries.
Russia's Population Decline Hits Record Rate
But even in the case of the average outlook, Russia's population is expected to dip below 146 million in the early parts of the 2021-2100 forecast period unless compensated by 900,000 migrants a year throughout that period.
The one-child policy (Simplified Chinese: 一孩政策) was a population planning initiative in China implemented between 1979 and 2015 to curb the country's population growth by restricting many families to a single child.
When did the one-child policy end? The end of China's one-child policy was announced in late 2015, and it formally ended in 2016. Beginning in 2016, the Chinese government allowed all families to have two children, and in 2021 all married couples were permitted to have as many as three children.
“China has become older before it has become rich,” said Yi Fuxian, a demographer and expert on Chinese population trends at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The National Bureau of Statistics reported Tuesday that the country had 850,000 fewer people at the end of 2022 than the previous year.
Japan's population has fallen for the 12th consecutive year, as deaths rise and the birth rate continues to sink, according to government data released Wednesday. The population stood at 124.49 million in 2022 – representing a decline of 556,000 from the previous year, figures show.
Even though the one-child policy ended in 2016 and China switched to a three-child policy in 2021, birth rates have not rebounded. The fertility rate fell to 1.2 in 2021, a record low. The high cost of having children means couples want fewer of them.
China is forecast to lose almost half of its people by 2100, plunging from more than 1.4 billion to 771 million inhabitants. Russia, Germany, South Korea and Spain are all set to join this downward movement, with their populations beginning to decline by 2030.
China's infamous one-child policy limited births for decades
Last year, China saw more deaths than births, according to government data publicized this week. Officials said 10.41 million people died while 9.56 million were born.
These achievements were attributed to major decisions such as the gradual adjustment of childbearing policies and the promotion of the long-term balanced development of the population according to the trend of China's population change, the National Health Commission (NHC) said during Wednesday's press conference.
The current population of Australia is 26,374,141 as of Monday, June 19, 2023, based on Worldometer elaboration of the latest United Nations data.
South Korea has the world's lowest fertility rate, a struggle with lessons for us all. A woman holding her daughter looks at a view of Seoul in 2019.
World's population could plummet to 6 billion by the end of the century, study suggests. A new model has predicted that Earth's population is likely to decrease in all scenarios across the next century and will peak nowhere near the 11 billion previously forecast.
Race & Ethnicity
The largest China racial/ethnic groups are White (96.9%) followed by Hispanic (1.7%) and Black (0.8%).
On 11th May 2000, India's population officially reached 1 billion people with the birth of a baby girl.